Marcelini
by Howling Din
Summary: Human AU set in the 1940s. Hunson Abadeer is a Mafia boss who wants his daughter Marceline to one day run the family business. This conflicts with her own plans for her life, but she ends up pulled in anyway.
1. Neo Italia

The cobblestone streets of New Florence City were especially lively. The rush hour heralded packed sidewalks, and masses of cars pippiting and popping throughout the streets. All condensed between high-rising buildings that defied any semblance of uniform or order. Many leaned in over the streets, and many yet were patched with polyester-soaked sheets that wrapped around their entire form.

A girl walked these streets. She was in her late teens, with flowing, knee-length raven hair and a bass guitar slung over her shoulder. The sidewalks were packed, and yet she negotiated them with ease, slipping and ducking past the clumsy, sloppy peoples inhabiting the streets with grace and precision.

Bodily waste fell from the upper stories of buildings, and splashed all over near the middle of the street. She looked to the left, across the street, and spotted a man dressed peculiarly like a clown. He wore an obnoxiously colored tunic with an oversized beret. As he moved along the walkway, he hopped, and hopped again, in and out of an awkward, flexible stance, only to advance again upon the next hop. A young woman, ahead of him, was frantically trying to push through the oblivious crowd as she kept looking back at him. He continued to advance on her, hop after hop.

A police officer, leaning against a lightpole, was looking straight at this scene. Satisfied, the officer went back to reading the paper.

As the raven-haired girl continued along the sidewalk, her own obnoxiously dressed assailant popped out of an alleyway, and began hopping at her. She heard him go "whoo!" with each hop up, and a "paa..." on each landing. He got close to her.

 _Wham!_

The assailant was on the ground, his nose crushed against his face. The girl walked on, indifferent thereafter.

Continuing along the street, she heard a different chant, coming from the next alleyway, she stopped to look, and saw a slight clearing in there. A circle of adolescent boys sat on their knees in a circle. They were all pale, frail, and wore glasses. Moving in sync, they ended each movement with all pointing their arms withing the circle, going "paa," at the same time as pointing. Then they went into a new set of arm movements, ending at another pointing forward, "lii!"

The girl moved on as soon as she saw what was going on in there. Nobody went into those alleyways; they were quite hazardous.

She moved on, eventually reaching her destination: a clearing in the buildings.

A huge television screen loomed over the clearing, which had a wide roundabout in the road, with a web of walkways and benches in the round center. The street veered off in a dozen different directions. A tightly packed crowd was growing in this broad intersection, all their attention was focused on the television screen.

It was almost time for the recently re-elected President's fifth inaugural speech, which would be broadcast all over the United States. The President was extremely popular. Anybody who missed a speech or public appearance was considered a weirdo.

She with the bass guitar heard two sets of footsteps approaching in a beeline directly toward her. Her hearing had always been unusually acute, and she could tell that these footsteps, out of the hundreds of footsteps around her, were heading directly to her position.

She turned, and smiled when she saw who it was.

Two men, the first was tall and slender, with a head of thick, golden hair. The one at his side was not much taller, but had a much wider build, and his face was so hideously ugly it was almost a work of art. Hard wrinkle lines formed along his mostly round face to the point of warping it. His face conveyed, in every sense, the word 'bulldog.'

"Finn, Jake." She said to both of them in salutation as they stopped in front of her. Finn and Jake, also known as the Werecanine brothers, were her friends. They worked for an institution called the P.S.S. And she occasionally hung out with them. The P.S.S. Was an agency recently formed by executive order. It had a bit of a reputation for allegedly employing a bunch of morally questionable psychotic thugs, but she didn't see any of those rumors come to life in her friends.

"What's up?" Said Finn easily, "how's your father doing?"

"Thank you for asking." She said flatly.

"Is there anything-"

"Thanks for asking is enough." She cut him off.

"So..." Jake walked in front of his younger, significantly more handsome brother, eager to change the subject. He looked at her bass guitar. "How's your music career going?"

She sensed the tension between them. Someone had recently tried to kill her father; an event that made news. That's why they were uneasy around her. She smiled at them, trying to knock away the ice. "It's okay, guys, you don't need to walk on eggshells with me."

"Still..." said Finn, talking past Jake.

She sighed. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my family, or its business." They were her friends, but they were still technically cops. Jake had it in him to let certain things slide, but Finn could never keep a secret from his superiors, it was against his nature.

"But aren't you a civilian?" Said Finn incredulously. Jake looked him in the eye as if to say 'let it slide,' but he kept his attention on her.

"Yes, and so I don't get involved." She replied to him. "If I talked about it, that would be getting involved." She shook her head, then, shook it more rapidly. "We're putting this in the past, now, got it?"

" _Please stand by for the fifth inaugural address."_ Spoke a mechanical voice that boomed smoothly throughout the streets.

She turned, and saw the huge screen had turned on. It showed a huge stage, the centerpiece of which was an exquisite podium with dozens of microphones. Standing next to the podium was a short, bald man in a tailcoat, whose eyes bore a look of blank dispassion. He raised an arm at the podium, and spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen, President Bonnibel Bubblegum!"

Camera flashes could be seen on the TV, and the crowd on the street roared in applause as a young woman walked onto the stage. Her thick, ankle-length pink hair was done into two large curls at the side of her head. The rest hung back off her head. Her attire looked like it belonged in the sixteenth century, its gaudiness suppressed only by its pink monocolor.

President Bubblegum waited for the crowd to settle down before beginning to speak. Her voice sounded like it belonged in wonderland; impudent, yet also soft, and easy on the ears. "It is with tremendous honor, and humility that I accept the position as your president, with all the power, and responsibility that entails. I am truly humbled that you, the people, have seen fit to elect me a fifth time."

The crowd attending the stage on TV clapped in resounding number. Then it died down.

She continued. "It has been nearly two centuries since our forefathers won their, and by extension our freedom from Italian rule, and established a nation of freedom and justice for all." More clapping erupted again. She spread her arms. "This nation is one of unparalleled prosperity..."

The raven haired girl looked over, and saw more bodily waste being dumped on the street from an upper window.

"Culture..."

She saw someone being arrested by an overweight cop, the suspect was a perfectly respectable looking person who wore a white collar suit.

"Dignity..."

She spotted an American flag hanging off a government office. Its proud red, white and green were bleached to nothing from overexposure to sunlight.

"Beauty..."

Numerous buildings in the city had been recently painted, a splash of rich, bright color that couldn't be more offensive to the eyes if they were covered in excrement. Some of them were.

"And love."

The girl heard something, over the quiet made by the airing of the address, it was steppings on the street, in a pattern entailing a struggle. She looked in the direction of the sound, and saw something unlike anything she saw that day, something sinister.

Far down one of the streets, there was a glimpse; a young woman was being taken into an alleyway. It was only glimpses, but she saw physical signals that she was under the influence of drugs. The men pushily taking her into the alleyway did not look like the clowns who openly wandered the streets. They were real thugs. Everybody's attention was focused on the speech, and they didn't notice this happening.

She looked at Finn and Jake, who in turn noticed her looking at them and took their attention off the screen above. She indicated with her head for them to follow her.

Seeing the serious look on her face, they didn't raise an objection, and followed her.

She slipped through the still crowd, their eyes still glued to the television. Needing to move fast, she sped up, taking the risk of hitting somebody.

A wandering pedestrian was walking sluggishly, obliviously, into her path.

" _Move!"_

As though puppeteered, her exclamation caused him to not only notice her coming his way, but jump out of the way to let her move unobstructed.

It was only a hunch, she thought to herself. What she saw were merely glimpses, and patterns that could be easily owed to chance. But still...

Once free of the main crowd in the round intersection, she bolted for the alleyway she saw the glimpses in. Finn and Jake were right behind her. She reached the alleyway.

What she saw not only vivified the hunch in the edges of her mind, but did so to a horrifying degree, intensified by how close she was to disregarding it. The young woman was up against the wall, surrounded by five or six ragged-looking men. She was laughing uncontrollably, wanting to jerk her head around. Indeed, she was drugged. And the men crowding on her wore the sort of smiles that entailed a supreme lack of intelligence, and also the will to use violence to compensate for that.

The raven haired girl walked into the alleyway. "Hey! What the hell are you doing!"

The thugs all turned at her, unhappy with being interrupted. Several of them pulled guns, aiming them at her. "You better piss off, little girl!"

She saw Finn and Jake enter the sides of her vision with their own guns. Their handguns glinted like chrome, and had highly advanced laser sights. "P.S.S.!" Shouted Finn, holding out a badge with his other hand, "place your weapons on the ground, now!"

The girl with raven hair saw where this was going, the thugs weren't the type to allow themselves to get arrested. This was going to be a Mexican standoff.

She stepped forward, past Finn and Jake, who had moved in front of her to shield her in the event of a shootout, and then she placed her hands on their arms, calmly lowering their guns. Her bass guitar was hanging by its strap behind her back. She looked all the thugs in the eye. "My name is Marcelini Abadeer, daughter of Hunson Abadeer."

Every one of the lowlife thugs recognized that name. The Abadeers were a renowned organized crime family. And Hunson Abadeer was one of the most powerful men in the city. Seeing her face, they began to panic. If they shot her, it would be the end of them.

Before they did anything, Marcelini spoke to them again. "Walk away, all of you, and you will not be accountable. You have my word."

They understood her offer, and knew they could not refuse it. They lowered their weapons. Finn walked up on them, probably intending to arrest them, but she grabbed his shirt, stopping him.

He looked back at her, as if to say 'what the flip?'

"Didn't you hear me?" She said to him. "I said they're not accountable."

"They're criminals."

They were walking in the other direction, leaving the woman, whom they drugged up, alone. "I just saved your life, Finn." She said as she let go, and walked over to the victim, placing a hand on her forehead. She was no doctor, but it was worth checking. Marcelini turned back to Finn and Jake. "This woman needs help, can you guys report this to someone?"

"Already did," said Jake as he flipped shut a portable radio with a built-in camera. "Ambulence'll be here in a few minutes."

She walked past them, back toward the street. After standing at the border between the alley and sidewalk for a few seconds, she let her body sag. The adrenalin of the moment was wearing off.

Finn came up beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You all right, Marcelini?" He'd been in situations like that before, and understood how nerve-wracking they could be.

She laughed lightly, wheezily. "That was actually... really scary."

He smiled at her. "You saved our hoochas back there, as well as that woman. She could have easily been hit if that situation went south." He had to say it, to make up for his attitude a minute ago.

Marcelini looked to the right along the street, and saw the ambulance coming. "Well, it's over now." Thank Glob. She looked at Finn and Jake together. "My day is open, what about you guys?"

They both nodded.

"Let's hang out then." They let the paramedics coming out of the ambulance van see to the drugged up woman in the alleyway as they walked along the streets of New Florence City.


	2. The Riverside

A tall steamboat went along the river, which was flanked left and right with thick urban zones. As the boat went along, its engine huffed, and its smokestack let out thick coal fumes into the sky. The boat's pilot was slouched atop the deck, lazily holding to a control lever as his boat steamed through the thick water traffic of the city.

It was oblivious as it approached a drawbridge lowering into place, far too low for the steamboat to pass under. The driver smashed a small rowboat as he continued along the river full throttle.

Having no choice, the drawbridge lifted again, stopping the land traffic above. The steamboat passed by, oblivious as it was in its approach. "Butthole!" Shouted an echo that came from anywhere, and was obviously directed at the boat driver.

Marcelini observed this scene from an outdoor riverside cafe, elevated on a cobblestone platform. The sun beamed down, and a cool breeze passed through unobstructed. Finn and Jake, the Werecanine brothers, were at the table with her. They had just settled the affair with the alleyway and the assault, and were hanging out.

Jake had his radio to his ear, and was listening intently to the other side, once he switched off and set it on the table, Marcelini leaned over a bit. "So, that woman alright?"

Jake looked at her in surprise, his foldy facial skin tightening a bit. It was as if he had his own repertoire of unique facial expressions. "She's in the hospital. They say it's all cool. More importantly," he turned to Finn, who was slouching back, enjoying the sweet aroma coming from the cafe kitchen and trying to doze off. "Finn, the local department wants us to I.D. The assailants."

Finn groaned, still slouching. "In other words, look through like a hundred books and finger the mugshots matching the faces we saw."

"That's right."

"Do we have to? That would take all day."

The bulldog man shook his head. "Of course not, we answer to Peacekeeping Strategic Services, not the department. We can just say we got better things to do."

The blonde, fair skinned young man kept to his slouch, letting out a relieved exhale. "Awesome."

Marcelini didn't want to consider that topic any more. The emergency was done, and now they could have a normal day. In that light, she was on the same wavelength with Finn. Jake stood taller than both of them as the only real adult of the three. She and Finn were in their late teens. She saw her bass guitar leaning on the table, and absently picked it up. Out of impulsiveness borne of her absent state of mind, she held it to play, moving her hand and fingers over the strings, running the scenario of playing different notes and lines she had done many times before.

" _To smooth out relations between the U.S., and this belligerent nation."_

This sound came from the television mounted near the corner of the building. She could barely hear it. The screen showed a map of northeast Asia, with a portion of east Russia bordered off. She turned toward behind the counter, within the building. "Hey, Tree Trunks!"

A short old lady lifted her head up, from behind the counter.

Marcelini pointed at the TV. "You mind turning this up?"

Tree Trunks reached over the counter, and threw a remote at her.

She caught it naturally. "Thanks!"

"Your pies will be out in a minute dear." The old lady replied.

Jake eagerly patted his stomach when he heard this.

She pointed the remote at the TV, and turned up the volume. " _It has been confirmed that this belligerent nation, calling itself a 'free and sovereign Siberia' has been orchestrated by one Issac Kingston, a known anarchist and former Russian politician, whose alleged mental instability had earned him immense scrutiny from his peers."_ A photo appeared on the screen, with a picture of a man whose features were dominated by an enormous white beard and hair mane. _"One unproven story suggests he was deported from Moscow when photos were found in his quarters, depicting U.S. President Bubblegum, among many other foreign politicians, all of them female."_

Finn shifted restlessly, he and Jake were also watching the news broadcast. Jake looked his way. "Somethin' up bro?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, I just have the weirdest urge to beat that guy up."

"That is weird," Jake reinforced. "Get it under control, or I'm taking you to see a shrink."

" _Moscow's official statement on the matter claims they have no plans on reclaiming Russian land with force, as it's 'only Siberia.'"_

"Makes sense," remarked Marcelini. "All of Siberia's population could fit in the south Bronx."

" _We've recently caught up with a Siberian delegate, who is in Alaska on his way to Washington."_ The screen shifted to live footage of an airfield in a frigid wilderness. In front of the camera was a figure who was so warmly dressed that their face was indiscernible. A news anchor put a mic up to their face. " _Ambassador Gunther, is it true you hope to speak with the US President in person?"_

Ambassador Gunther pulled his muffler down, uncovering a mouth. "Who is known for obsessively micromanaging U.S. foreign policy, yes."

" _And, can you give our viewers any idea what your stance is going to be? Does this new country have anything to announce, and do you hope to be recognized as a legitimate nation?"_

"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do," said Gunther, looking straight into the camera. "I'm gonna come to Washington, I'm gonna sit the President down, then I'm gonna look her dead in the eye, and I'm going to to say...: Don't blow up my country."

The footage immediately cut away to the station. _"And that's all the time we have, in other news..."_

Marcelini muted the television, not caring for the other news. She looked to Finn and Jake, "Issac Kingston, think he might end up on America's wanted list?"

"Marcy," said Jake. "You got things you can't talk about, and so do we."

"Alright, that's cool." She didn't want to be difficult about that. She regarded her friendship with them as an an anchor indicating that she was succeeding in not getting involved in her father's business. And their refusal to talk about certain things was, to her mind, done for similar reasons and for the sake of the same thing.

"Order up!" Tree Trunks shouted. There were three hot, steaming pies on the serving counter. Finn and Jake got up to fetch them, leaving Marcelini alone at the table.

"Issac Kingston, he's pretty well known in Europe."

Marcelini turned to the source of the voice, it was a person standing near her table. He wore thin bandages over every part of his body and most of his face, covered with a vest and baggy shorts, with his bandaged feet going into sandals.

"What are you doing here?"

Finn and Jake were coming back to the table, carrying their pies.

"Well known," the bandaged man continued, "for talking too much, should listen to the guy drone on and on..."

"You've met him." Finn and Jake stopped near the table, looking at him with curiosity. "Finn, Jake," she said to them as she indicated the bandaged man. "This is Scorcher, he works for my father, as a..." she stopped.

"Enforcer," said Scorcher, "it's not an insult, I'm quite proud of my work." His mouth was concealed behind his bandages.

"Scorcher, these two work for the P.S.S." Marcelini said to him hastily, afraid he might have given them ground to arrest him.

Scorcher looked straight at Finn and Jake, who were setting their apple pies on the table. "I got five killers with badges working for me-"

"All right, that's enough!" Said Marcelini. "What are you doing here, Scorcher?"

Scorcher shifted attention from them to her. "Some people tried to kill the don."

"I heard, I also heard he's fine."

"That he is." Said Scorcher, "he ripped the attacker's heart out."

"Okay, Scorcher, we're eating here..."

"Literally."

"Thank, you, Scorcher." She said with more force.

"It still tried to beat in his hand-"

" _Scorcher!_ "

He stopped speaking.

Marcelini sighed, "just tell me why you're here."

Scorcher paused for a moment, then began speaking as though the conversation were carrying naturally. "Since people have it out for your dad, he got all worried and asked me to check up on you."

"Well, as you can see, I'm fine."

"He'd also like for you to-"

"I'll come home when I'm ready to come home."

"Okay," he said immediately as he turned to leave.

Jake watched him leave, and turned to Marcelini. He swallowed his fistful of pie, "He's got a point, maybe you should head home."

She got started on her pie. "No worries, I have you two with me; two highly trained agents of an agency you're barely allowed to talk about."

Finn was frowning into his pie. "Our duties are very clearly defined, we're not supposed to bodyguard a crime boss' daughter. The fact that we're friends is a personal matter."

Marcelini swallowed her next pie bite. It was delicious. "What was that stuff in the alleyway then? I'm sure your duty is not to patrol the streets, looking for petty criminals either."

"That was a coincidence," Finn rebutted. "We weren't 'patrolling the streets,' we saw it happen, and reacted according to the law, nothing more."

Marcelini put up a finger, she had to catch up to Finn and Jake's progress on their pies. Once she took a few more forkfuls, she continued. "You're not 'protecting me' either. You're my friends, who are also P.S.S. agents, and we're hanging out. And if you coincidentally happen to see an attempted kidnapping or murder, you're obliged to prevent it, no?"

Finn considered this as they ate in silence. Then he shook his head. "We'd still be accessories. Far as the courts, and the crime families are concerned, they could easily convince everyone that we were there as your bodyguards, even if it isn't true."

"That'd be the case," said Jake, "if it were anybody but Don Abadeer."

"What do you mean?" Finn asked.

"Y'see, Finn," Jake touched his shoulder. "When the U.S. Entered the Great European War, our eastern shipping docks, all of them, kept running into a packstorm-monkeyfest of problems and setbacks. Needless to say, this seriously hurt the war effort."

"And?"

"Well, what I'm about to tell you is a federal secret. It was carefully negotiated so that the public not know. But everybody at this table," he glanced at Marcelini, "either already knows, or has clearance."

"Don't hold me in suspense."

Jake continued. "It was Don Abadeer who made all those problems disappear. He's got a lot of goodwill from the Federal Government."

"I see," said Finn. Then he shook his head. "No, a criminal is a criminal. I'd arrest him on the spot if I could."

Marcelini ate her pie faster, growling in anger.

"Did I... say something bad?" Finn was a bit taken aback.

"I hate it!"

The outburst was enough to make Jake stop chewing his pie. "What do you hate?" He said easily, through a full mouth.

She settled down. "I hate... no, I don't hate my family. What I hate is who they are interfering with my life."

Finn was looking at the river right next to the cafe. "It's just some difficulties, you'll get past them, right? I mean, it's not like anything is set in stone."

Marcelini sighed. "My dad, he wants me to take over the business."

"So why not do it?" Jake was slouched back, already having finished his pie. "You'd be set for life!"

"No."  
"Jake, what's wrong with you?" Finn burst out.

Jake was still relaxed, "little bro, if I only said things I deemed absolutely perfect, I'd be a very quiet man."

"I'm not a contrarian though, not a rebel." Marcelini stood up, "I did give it some thought. And I think I would do an amazing job, if I became head of the Family." She readied her guitar to play, and began hitting notes, to a slow, calm tune. " _My dad would be proud, and my name would go down..._ " She was drifting into singing.

Jake reached down, and pulled a viola out of its case.

" _But is it so..!_ " She played a chain of rising notes. " _Un-believ-ea-ble... that it is not..._ "

Finn stood up, utilizing his knack for vocals to lay down a supplementary line of notes.

" _Whaaaat.. I.. want.. for my life?_ "

"Hey!" The voice was strained, hard, and extended. It hinted at a disapproval that probably wasn't meant.

The interrupted trio looked toward Tree Trunks, who had interrupted them. She indicated a large podium off on the side of the stone terrace the cafe tables were set up on. "I set you guys a spot for that!" They were regulars at her place.

They looked at each other, then at the stage. No words were necessary, they took their instruments and went over to the podium.


	3. House Abadeer

**Not a single named character in this is an Original. Every one of them is based on a character who appears in at least one episode of the show.**

Calm were the cobblestone streets of New Florence. She walked alone, in the direction of home. The evening had cast its quiet, calm and cold over the city. A cold that suppressed even the stinky stuff on the roads, seeped through the stone and smashed flat into nothing by constant traffic, but whose odor stubbornly wished to endure.

Dim, colorful dusklight illuminated the calm streets. There were people still out and about, and the regular passing car. But compared to several hours earlier, it was like the peak of a mountain.

It finally felt safe enough to take a deep breath, refreshing when free of the liability of invisible puffs of stink.

Uneventful was her stroll; no happenings, no peculiar noises, and no familiar faces. Uneventful was a synonym for normal. Indeed, it would be strange if yet another incident occurred that day.

As she traveled the streets of New Florence, the scenery changed from generally filthy urban structures to cleaner buildings made of brick or well-used plaster. She was entering a more upper class residential zone, indicated by that none of the buildings had sewage all over them, and the streets didn't smell near as bad.

She advanced past this part of town, the streets of which were even more sparse of pedestrians and traffic, in part because of time moving deeper into the evening, and in part because people living in this area tended to retire at a respectable time.

She heard rhythmic patting nearby, produced by stray animals running on stone, and allowed into her earshot by the inactive silence of the evening.

Eventually, she reached an immense iron gate, housed within a stone wall. All blocking off an expansive green field within. The road beyond the gate veered to the left, out of view.

A man in a came into view behind the gate. He saw her, and took out a small remote. The gate unlocked when he pressed a button on it. As the gate swung open, she passed through.

"Evenin', Miss Abadeer." Said the gate guard.

"To you, too," she replied as she passed by.

The gate man went back inside a small cubby on the inward side of the gatehouse. There were a few other guys in there, and they were playing cards next to a large surveillance monitor.

She continued along the road, hearing the gate swing shut behind her. Ahead to the left and right was an expanse of cut grass, shrubberies, garden parks and small buildings ranging from scenic outlook platforms to souped up tool sheds.

The concrete road led to the centerpiece of the estate; a marble monstrosity atop the highest ground. Fortress and palace, it held a terrain dominance, overlooking the entire area within the walls.

It wasn't until she became older that she realized that the mansion was a perfect mix of beauty and defensibility. Anything that passed the wall surrounding the property was a trespasser, and also visible from the central high ground the mansion was built on. The wall was merely a deterrent, meant to be easily bypassed. The real main line of defense was the sheer distance over open ground to reach the mansion after getting past any part of the wall.

She reached the end of the road, and then the stairs leading up to the padio to the front double doors of the house. In another direction, the road veered off into a parking area nearby. She came to the door, and it was opened for her by a hunched over old man who smiled dumbly but sweetly. He was the family butler, referred to as the Door Lord from his days as a world-class locksmith, and his diligence in always answering the door. He didn't have a tongue, but always liked to hum to express his mood, which was almost always cheerful. She nodded to his dumbly cheerful face as she came inside.

The first room was not symmetrical. The right was a row of wide room sections with no walls blocking them from the corridor, only from each other. A high ceiling revealed the second floor above on the right, and visible arches supporting it. On the left was a tall-ceilinged room, not quite as tall as the second floor ceiling, whose walls were glass on three of the four sides. The room within was a bar complete with tables, and the doors inside were on the corner pieces of its glass walls.

The mansion always had a sizable amount of people staying or visiting. It was not just her family's home, but also the headquarters for her father's entire organization. It was a huge empire, and he had a lot of associates and saw a lot of people.

She spotted a man in a dark green sweater vest sitting at a bench next to the wall on the left past the bar. He was gigantic, easily bigger than anybody else in view, even as he sat on the low bench with his knees up high. He was staring ahead into space.

She recognized him as Donny Controdual, also known simply as D.C. He was her father's bodyguard. Not long ago, he was a short-tempered adolescent who went around bullying the otherwise peaceful people in his neighborhood. When a newspaper story fingered him and got him jail time, his neighborhood suddenly became harassed by vandals and con-men who were previously scared to wander into that area because of Donny's presence and intimidating size.

Her father heard about this, and recognized that such intimidation was precisely how Italians ran protection rackets efficiently. He was amazed at how it occurred naturally in Donny's neighborhood. With this, he bailed Donny out of jail and recruited him.

She stopped next to him, undaunted by his giant size and indifferent demeanor, she stood next to him facing away from the bench, and put a hand on his shoulder. "How's life, Donny?"

He looked over her way, then went back to staring ahead, saying nothing. He used to be loud, and prone to extreme mood swings. But having worked for her father transformed his attitude into the reserved, quiet type.

"What happened on the hit, the... attempt on my dad's life?" She knew he was there; he accompanied her father whenever he left home.

Without changing his facing, he began to speak. "The boss was headin' back to the car. Two guys came in, and started running him up. They had concealed pistols."

"And these were the perps?"

He nodded. "We were tipped off though. I shot 'em before they got too close."

"Any idea who's behind it?"

Donny shook his head. "Hitters were brought in, nobody recognized em'. One was still breathing, and we interrogated him. But he didn't say mum. The boss got mad, and tore his-"

"Okay, I already heard that part, thanks."

He looked over at her, his face was light, and his eyebrows slightly raised. "I'm sorry 'bout saying that, Marcy, a lady shouldn't have to hear about that stuff. It ain't civil."

The last thing she expected Donny to behave like was a gentleman. She stood up, patting him on the shoulder. "Whoever said I was one?" He looked up at her face, and she was smiling. Then she walked away. She didn't know what that would do, only that it would accomplish her aim; making him not feel so bad about speaking freely.

She continued past, heading for a staircase just ahead. As she rose up the steps, another figure, leaning against the wall, came into view. It was a tall, lanky man in an obnoxious green suit. His face and hair were anything but Italian. He was looking her way as she came up. She knew nearly everybody who worked closely with her father. A byproduct of living in the same house with him. And this guy was called Magus Manfred, nicknamed the Magic Man for his unparalleled talent as a lawman. He was middle-aged, with a receding hairline.

He didn't speak as she approached, so she turned left, passing him by. He got up from leaning on the wall and walked beside her. She felt obliged to say something, as his small actions of that moment were shaped by her being there. She searched her mind for a subject, and found one. "There gonna be a trial?" He knew what she was talking about, he was her father's lawyer, and so it concerned him.

"There is," he replied. "But it's a clear walk. Clean cut case of self defense, and Donny's got license to carry a firearm."

"Did they note the gruesome bit?" It interested her, she wondered what the law said about ripping somebody's heart out.

Magus shook his head. "The attackers didn't even belong in this country, no ID, no passports. Therefore no aggrieved party to make any testimony. Mister Abadeer's got nothing to worry about, he just needs to show up in court for about an hour."

She wanted to say that was good to hear, but decided against it. "So, why are you following me?"

"Why are you going to see Mister Abadeer?" She was heading in the direction of his office.

She shrugged. "I was out all day. I don't want to give him the sense that I'm avoiding him."

Magus Manfred began to huff in laughter. "Only you."

"Only I what?"

"Only you would say something like that, in that context."

She tried to read what he was thinking. "I know he's frightening to nearly everybody, and for good reason. I'm one of the few people on Earth who has nothing to fear from him. Is it so weird that I'm aware of that?"

He shook his head as they continued along the hallway. It had a high, arched ceiling, and a hard floor with a long rug going all along the center. "No, the way you're aware of what he might think of things. The way you consider that he might be misled into thinking something if you don't bend a bit to disavow his assumption. Do you see? You've come to an interaction with him in which you've control over the terms, the one whose mind and decision determines the outcome."

She considered this as they walked along the corridor. There weren't any other people in this part of the mansion. "I think... you're skipping out one thing."

"What?"

"The fact that his thoughts of me are never going to be entirely objective. I'm his child, so of course he's not going to have his guard up like he would with other people. And the fact that I'm his child is a bias having nothing to do with my own capacity; I was born his child."

Magus slowly formed a smile, "he has high hopes for you, you know."

She sighed, "when I made my decision, I made myself ready to say this a thousand times: I don't want to take his place. I don't want to become involved in his business."

"You'd be great at leading the Family."

"I'm a girl. It's as unheard of here as in Italy for a Family to be led by a female."

Magus spread his arms in an exaggerated shrug. "Ever since that mad, pink genius got elected into the Gold House, the gender barriers in our culture have been evaporating. By the time you're ready to succeed your father, the family'll be ready to accept you."

It was obvious now that Magus Manfred and her father had been talking among themselves about her. Talking about her future. Trying to decide her future for her.

She stopped in front of the door to his office, "if you'll excuse me, Magus, I'm going to have a word with him."

"About what?"

She turned around to face him, and then smiled lightheartedly. "To say hi, of course." She turned the knob, and walked into the room.

Hunson Abadeer was facing the window behind his desk, holding a telephone to his ear. A dark suit, that almost seemed to absorb the light from the room, was not enough to hide his immense physique. His pitch black hair was slicked back and tucked under his ears, ending in a controlled array of thick, short calligraphic zigzag shapes behind his neck.

She walked into the office, and saw Scorcher sagged down on one of the chairs on the far left. She went left around the corner of the brief entrance hall into the office, and leaned back against the wall. Her father was a perfectly busy person, she could wait for his phone call to finish.

Magus Manfred walked up to stand next to the desk, waiting for the same thing.

Hunson nodded, still facing the window, and then spoke, "no, not an issue at all, I'll-"

The door to the office opened again, the person entering walked rapidly into the room. This person wore a pantsuit colored dark brown with a red tint, coloring that clashed perfectly with her auburn hair. She saw Hunson on the phone, and then looked to the left, and smiled at seeing who she saw. "Hey, Marcy." She said in a hushed, but still perfectly legible tone.

"What's up, Penny?" She replied as she nodded in salutation.

At age 12, Penny was the de-facto leader of a gang of fellow children who went around pickpocketing and swindling people on the streets of New Florence. One day, Penny successfully picked Hunson Abadeer's wallet. While she was making her getaway, Hunson pulled his handgun and fired into the air. The deafening sound of the gunshot made Penny fall over from shock, feeling like she had picked the wrong pocket and he had shot her. She remained on the ground out of fright. As the people on the street ran away, screaming in panic, he walked up to her, and told her to return his wallet. She got up on her feet, and did as he said.

When he took his wallet back from her open palms, he picked her up and held her tush under his arm, holding her face close to his own face in a kind, civil manner. Then he asked her if she would like a job, and she said yes. She lived at the Abadeer estate from then on, working as an errand girl. During this time, she and the younger Marcelini became friends.

When Penny got older, they started trusting her with more complex, sometimes more risky work than simple errands. When her dependability and competence became apparent, she was officially indoctrinated, and rose through the ranks, recently having become a lieutenant.

Penny's freckled face produced a sideways grin that showed her top teeth. "I'll tell you what's up Marcy. I just figuratively returned home from the freaking war. A huge mess of pricks and loose ends that can now be written off as solved."

Hunson Abadeer turned around, revealing his face. An Italian face that looked to have belonged in the depths of hell. That it was pale as a ghost did not detract from its scare factor. It was obviously a human face with no deformities, but its precise aesthetic was difficult not to notice, being tall, gaunt, with protruding bone in the extremities.

Still holding the phone to his ear, he continued to speak into it. "Of course, someone will be over, right away." He took the phone away from his ear, then looked straight at Penny as he tapped the talk speaker with his index finger, lifting his eyebrows.

Penny read the signal, and turned around, "just splendid, more crap to wipe up!" Then she looked to her right. "Been nice seeing you Marcy."

"You too, Penny."

Penny stormed out of the office, and slammed the door shut.

Hunson Abadeer already set the phone on the receiver. He paused there for a moment. Then he looked her way. "Be with you in a moment, dear." Contrary to his terrifying face, his voice was almost always softspoken.

"Take your time, dad."

He turned to Scorcher, who was buried in a chair, trying to make himself as anonymous as possible, "Scorcher."

"Y... yeah boss?"  
"I gave you a job today. I told you to keep an eye on my daughter if she refused to come home immediately. And what did you do?"

"I... lost her, sir."

"Don't be too hard on him dad." She interjected. "I lost him on purpose. It's not his fault if his eyes can't tell this.." she grabbed a tuft of her lush, black hair, "fabulous mane from a black leopard pelt being worn over the head of a man."

Hunson looked at Scorcher. "Is this true?"

Scorcher nodded. "I was locked on her distinctive hair, the decoy led me in circles for an hour before I realized what was up."

He was running a hand over his face. "Okay then, you're dismissed."

Scorcher tentatively rose from his seat. "What... what do you want me to do now?"

"Go find Penny, do whatever she asks."

Scorcher left the office, eager to get away from his disappointed boss.

When the door shut, Hunson began to pace in front of his desk. He turned to his daughter. "Scorcher is a first rate sneaker. How did you know-"

"You're predictable."

He raised a finger, but then let it drop. "Who were your decoys?"

"My friends, Finn and Jake."

"Hm, the cops." He had a crooked, amused smile. "How did you get them to go along with it?"

"We thought it'd be fun."

"Was it?"

"For me? Very."

He took a deep breath, and exhaled, stopping his pace to lean casually on the desk. "I'm glad you came, Marcelini. There's something I wish to discuss-"

"Dad, I already told you, I don't want it."

He put up a hand, "now hear me out." His voice became lower, faster, harder.

"I already told her about what we discussed." Magus Manfred interjected.

He looked at him, "how much of it?"

"Pretty much all of it. Her answer is still no though."

He sighed, "Marcelini, I wish you would at least consider-"

"I have considered it, dad. That's what you don't understand. I gave it a lot of thought." She got off the wall she was leaning on. "I don't want to become like you, but..." she walked up to him. "The last thing I want to be to you is cruel. I know you want our family name to continue, and I know you see a lot of potential in me." They were looking each other directly in the eye, yet still she calmly approached, and put a hand on his shoulder. "But it just isn't what I want to do with my life. I'd... be happy... if you understood that."

Hunson shut his eyes, keeping his head still. Then, he inhaled, stood up straight, and wrapped his arms around his daughter all in one motion, holding her in a tight hug. "Oh, Marcelini, I'm not gonna be one-tracked about this." He let her loose, looking her face to face. "I would rather my child be strong, and free, and not want what I want for her, than all those things in inverse."

She felt a powerful relief, like something heavy, and ugly had been rid from existence. "Dad, you've... really surprised me."

He laughed out loud as he walked toward the door out of the office, She and Magus following. "I sure as math better still be capable of that."


	4. Night on the Town

**Three guesses which episode this chapter parallels... Enjoy!**

* * *

Finn lifted his head, surveying the tight space in which he sat. He was sitting on a side bench inside of a large military plane. Its engines roared outside in the cold night air.

"The situation is tenuous." Said a man in a brown suit sitting across from him. "The terrorists have holed up in the Tendime bank building in south Manhattan, deep in New Florence."

Finn nodded, having not spoken since getting on the plane. A black leopard pelt sat next to him on the bench. He was wearing it over his head when he was contacted for the mission. Helping Marcelini dodge Scorcher by posing as a decoy.

The man continued as he adjusted his spectacles. "They have hostages, and their ringleader claims to have dynamite rigged on the lower foundation."

"How many?"

"Hostiles, or hostages?"  
"Why don't you tell me both."

He nodded. "Mmm, right. There's at least ten hostiles, confirmed armed and dangerous. Twenty hostages in the building confirmed, though there may be more unaccounted. The terrorist ringleader goes by the alias 'Princess Cookie'."

"What's his nationality?"

"A native-born American. With no criminal record that precedes this."

Finn couldn't hold in a hard exhale. "What's his beef?"

"We don't know, he's kinda crazy. Our negotiator is lost at the wheel."

"What about the other hostiles?"

"No intel. Sightings confirm they're European, but beyond that nothing. The Banana Corps have formed a perimeter around the building, but they can't storm the place out of fear of the dynamite. If it detonates, it might bring the entire building down." The Banana Corps was a civilian law enforcement agency modeled after England's Scotland Yard. They've gained a lot of popularity over the last several decades, and have spread across the country. If they didn't exist, the perimeter would have had to be handled by the military rolling into the city.

Finn was studying blueprints of the building. "It's pretty easy to guess which parts are rigged up, if the intent is to make the whole thing come down." He looked up. "Where are you guys sticking Jake?"  
"Your brother is being prepped to go into the front door undercover as a delivery man. His mission is to divert the enemy, while you go in topside, confirm the presence of explosives, and disarm them if there are."

Finn nodded. He was equipped for the mission, with a black parachute and ops suit that would camouflage him against the night sky. He had his pistol, as well as a pressure gun that shot tranquilizer darts. He had training in bomb diffusal, and the tools for it.

The man crossed his arms. "This is a highly hazardous mission, and we pulled you in on very short notice. Are you up for it?"

Finn stood up as he picked up a soft, black cap. He combed his lush, golden hair back as he placed the cap over the top, sides, and back of his head, pulling the goggles over his eyes. "Just let me know when we're over the target."

The serious looking man lifted an eyebrow impersonally. "You and your brother have a certain... reputation. I look forward to seeing how you perform."

They remained in eye contact for agonizingly long seconds. Then Finn broke into a grin as he walked toward the shut ramp in the rear of the plane's fuselage. "If, when this is over, the hostages have returned safely, and the perpetrators of this are taken in, I'll walk away happy."

A few more seconds of silence. "Good luck, Finn Werecanine." He pulled a switch, and the ramp opened, letting in the howling noise of the engines, as well as chilling night air.

When the red light next to the ramp switched to green, Finn walked to the edge of the open ramp, and let himself tip off the edge, falling onto the city below.

He fell freely through the chilling air, observing the vast metropolis of New Florence beneath him. The cityscape was lit against the night. He had to find his target.

As he fell, Finn spotted a building surrounded by purple spotlights that beamed straight into the sky. That was his mark. He let the orientation of his fall pass the area above the mark, then opened his parachute. It caught air, and his fall became slowed. The parachute let down a pair of handles with which he could control his fall.

Finn made a loose turnaround back toward the building. The buildings in south Manhattan were very tall, having gotten close, it was easy to tell which was his target without the purple lights. With this, he pressed a button on a transponder. This caused the purple spotlights to be switched off by the men on the ground who received his signal. It wouldn't do to have the lights give him away in his approach.

His roundabout turn brought him to a perfect trajectory to be over the building when he was low enough to land on its roof. He landed on a concrete terrace in the uppermost floor, which was an intricate web of outdoor catwalks and walkways with metal railings.

Finn landed on his feet, then took off the parachute backpack. He looked ahead, to where the floor went indoors, and to the left and right. He saw a silhouette against the lit city, standing near the corner in one direction. They weren't aware of his presence.

He pulled his tranq pistol and shot the silhouette, watching it drop on the spot. The person was at least twelve meters away, but he was an expert marksman. The tranquilizer pistol was quiet, he didn't need to worry about noise.

The next second, his face had the muzzle of a gun up to it. A man had come out from the indoors right ahead of him. Finn stood up slowly from his crouch as the man kept the muzzle to his face.

" _Who are you? What are you doing here!_ " The man shouted in Russian.

Finn only needed a second, he kept his wits about him. He lifted his goggles up, revealing his eyes and looking at him with an expective, and slightly angry gaze. " _I should ask that of you!_ " Finn rebutted in fluent Russian. " _Why are you not at your post!_ "

Realizing that Finn might be someone he wasn't told about, the man quickly lowered his gun. " _I'm sorry, I hadn't seen you before, so I assumed,_ " he looked down at the parachute on the floor. " _What's this?_ "

" _I found it here._ " Finn said. " _We have an intruder._ " He pointed over to the spot where he shot the silhouette. " _You search over there, and I'll take the west side._ "

Happy that the misunderstanding ended on a civil note, he walked past, toward the direction Finn pointed.

Finn raised his tranquilizer gun and shot him in the back the second it was turned. Not wasting time, he headed toward the indoor opening as the man collapsed on the floor.

"Status report," spoke a tiny audio wig in his ear.

Finn put pressure on the area on top of his ear hole with an index finger. "I'm on the roof. Two bogeys down, over." He was already walking along the doorless, indoor corridors, heading to where the blueprints said the entrance to the service stairway was.

"Jake has entered the building undercover. You have ten minutes to confirm and disarm the explosives."

"Roger that." Ten minutes was plenty of time. He found the service stairway, and went through the door, inside a plain, continuous shaft with a stairwell that went all the way to the ground floor.

Finn walked down the stairs naturally, acting as though he belonged there. The terrorists didn't have any kind of uniform, and they concealed their faces. With his own face hidden by his hat and goggles, blending among them was easy. They would have no way of telling he wasn't one of them at first sight.

As he trotted down the steps, another bogey came into view. While he was registering Finn trotting naturally down the steps, Finn quickly shot him with a tranq dart and he went down. He passed by naturally, without changing his rapid pace as the man collapsed on the steps.

After a whole minute of going down the steps, he stopped at a door on the fourth floor. Assuming the intent was to collapse the building, the dynamite would be set in maintenance hatchways in order to be close to the framework, and according to the blueprints, the hatchways were only on the ground floor, and every fourth floor up. Blowing the supports up in the eighth floor wouldn't destroy the building, so it left two plausible floors.

Finn advanced along the corridors and reached a maintenance hatch on the fourth floor without any run-ins. He figured there were no explosives, as if there were, somebody would probably be guarding them. A look inside the inspection hatch confirmed this. He pressed his earwig to to talk. "No sign of bombs on the fourth floor. What's the word from Jake? Over." Jake was on the ground floor. If there were explosives, they would be there, and he might notice them.

"He hasn't reported."

This made him worried, but he had to focus on the mission. Lives were at stake. He had to head to the ground floor himself, and neutralize the presence of explosives. Once that was seen to, the Banana Corps could storm the building.

Finn was aware that if he was dispatched, or the main body of the enemy were alerted to his presence, it would bury any chance of disarming the explosives if there were any. The Banana Corps would have to storm the building anyway, and if there was dynamite, a lot of people would get hurt or killed.

The pressure of this came to him, and then brushed off, sliding into irrelevancy. There was no point in feeling. He was in mission mode, there was no time for anything irrelevant, like feelings.

He stuck his head into the inspection hatch, and found that the area around the concrete column went all the way up and down within the housing. With this, he squeezed his slender frame inside feet first, and slid down with his knees and hands on the frame column, and his back and feet on the surrounding cover.

He let himself slide down, his full-body ops suit protected him from scraping as he made good time reaching the ground floor.

His knees bumped something, and he stopped. He looked down, and saw a floor, only about a meter down from where he was.

He straightened himself, and dropped the rest of the way. As he landed, his knees bent to absorb the fall, and slammed abruptly into the frame. Stopped unexpectedly at his feet and knees together, his leg bones were subjected to extreme stress. A ringing sensation accompanied the pain.

Finn looked straight ahead, at the frame piece. He opened the maintenance hatch behind him, and what he saw from the inflow of light made him want to poo himself.

The concrete column was drilled through in at least a dozen spots, and filled by fitted packets of plastic explosives. The packets had coiling cords that came out of the holes, and all converged on a central charge with a large detonation mechanism. The detonator had a small antenna, and no wires except those going to the auxiliary charges. It was set up to be detonated remotely. The bomb as a whole smelled like fresh baked cookies.

Finn pressed his earwig to talk. "...Presence of explosives confirmed. I'm... really scared." Someone, somewhere, probably in this building was holding a detonator. And if they chose, at that moment, to use that detonator, he'd be a dead man.

"Well? Disarm it then!"

Finn looked at the detonation mechanism, and found the screws. He promptly unscrewed them, and took the cover off the innards. The innards looked like a spaghetti bowl that was a portal to the spaghetti dimension. With enough wiring to knit an adult-sized onesey. He pressed talk on his earwig again. "I need you to forward me to Beemo."

"Beemo? Is that some kind of code name?"

His apprehension reached a boiling point. This was getting very stressful. "Okay, just forward me to P.S.S. HQ. They can get me Beemo."

"It's just dynamite, right? You can handle that!"  
"It's not dynamite!" He was breathing harder. "I need Beemo so just get me to the people who can get me Beemo!"

"Okay, relax. I'm forwarding you now..." A new voice came on. "This is P.S.S. Command, whaddya need, over?"

"Is Beemo in?"  
"Beemo's always in."

Thank Gob. "Put me on his line, then, over."

"Who is this?"

"Finn Werecanine."

Without another word, the line switched. "Finn? Issat you?"

The voice was childlike, slightly effeminate, and with a slight plastic echo. Finn had never met B.M.O. in person, so he had no idea whether it was a filter. "It's me Beemo. Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah Finn! I got several whole minutes!"

"Awesome." He took out a hand held camera with a wire bundle going into his belt. He positioned it, "here, have a look at this." He took the picture. The flash rendered everything a bit more visible for a split second.

Finn heard a fax machine in the background, and someone taking the paper out. "Red and yellow." Said B.M.O.

"Wha-" he pressed talk. "You mind looking at it for more than half a second?"

"I designed that detonator, Finn!"

He paused... "You did?"  
"Yes, aren't you in the training room?"

Finn got past the confusion. "No, Beemo. This is real. So I need you to be absolutely certain. This could just look like a detonator you designed, and if this isn't done right, I'll be dead, you understand?"

There was a pause.

"Beemo? Time is kind of a factor here."

"It's red and yellow. I know this setup really well, and I'm certain."

"You're certain? Really, really certain?"

"Finn, I swear on your soul."

That was the lowest, most unjustified blow he'd taken in a long time. But this was a mission, he would just have to trust the support. With cutters ready in his hand, he took the red and yellow wires, and snipped them both at the same time.

The detonator rig wasn't a computer, it had no lights or screens. And so there was no way to tell if it was disarmed. It could explode in his face. He would yet still have to trust it was disarmed.

Finn Werecanine shifted to turn around, and then climbed out of the inspection hatch. It was inside a walk-in closet. He climbed out of the hatch and slowly shut it behind him.

He crossed the walk-in, and reached the door. It opened inward, which he was glad for, as he could slide it open a lot more discreetly.

He checked the corners in the corridor outside the walk-in. The corridor was deserted. The man on the plane said there were at least ten hostiles counting the ringleader. He'd dispatched three, the rest might all be with the hostages. There were four main columns in the building, presupposing four bombs. Guarding them all would mean pulling at least four guys away from the main group, leaving only three to guard the hostages. Which they weren't doing, as the bomb he disarmed had nobody guarding it. They were probably counting on guarding entry points into the building, with the guys on the roof. The one coming up the steps was moving to reinforce them.

Finn exited the walk-in, going right, away from the center of the building, where the lobby, hostages, and the bulk of the enemy were.

He reached a three-way going left and right in ninety degree turns. He put his back up to the wall, and turned his head over to check the hall.

Somebody was looking straight at him.

He immediately withdrew his head, and heard hard footsteps coming his way.

As the footsteps became closer, he remained calm, listening closely, objectively, to the footsteps. Then he stuck his pressure pistol around the corner, and blindfired.

He heard the assailant fall on the floor, his assault gun clattering a bit. And the halls became quiet again.

Finn rounded the corner, passing the now incapacitated enemy as he advanced along the hall. His tranquilizer darts were extremely potent, with an almost instantaneous effect. He preferred not to kill unless it was really necessary, and was glad to have a gun that shot the darts semi-automatic.

"Progress report."

Finn pressed his earwig. "One bomb disarmed, three to go. Four bogeys neutralized, I remain undetected, over."

"Four minutes remaining before we start the raid, understood?"

He had nothing to say to that, he reached the next walk-in with an inspection hatch.

"Answer me, Finn, are you there?"

He pressed talk as he opened the hatch with his other hand. "I thought you were still talking, you're supposed to end messages with 'over.' Over."

His tone became harder, "I've already begun to draft my report of your performance-"

"And please keep the topic on things relevant to the mission at hand. Over." He got the last screw out of the covering. The innards were almost identical to the last one.

"My report is going to say that the agent was rude and uncooperative-"

Having already snipped the red and yellow wires, he stuck his tweezers into his ear and took out the tiny bud talking to his drum. He placed it in a front pocket of his ops suit.

Finn exited the walk-in, and continued his circle around the outer floor.

Heading to the front half of the building, he passed by a hallway that led straight into the lobby. Ducking the corner showed that nobody was looking his general direction, and so he silently passed by the lobby's line of sight under cover of darkness from the building not having power.

"You better split, buddy. It's about to get all cray-cray in here." Said a voice in the lobby.

Finn stopped around the corner of the next hall, and listened.

"Look, if you give yourself up, I'll put in a word for you or something. You'll be under our protection." The voice was Jake's. "It's your best shot. They're not gonna be too nice to someone who threatened to set off a bomb in New Florence."

"They're not real bombs." Said the other voice. "They're all full of cookie dough."

That helped explain why they smelled like cookies. He'd once smelled a real plastic explosive that smelled like almond, so he wasn't too keen on a different kind smelling like cookies. Finn had to report this, they could go ahead with the seizure of the building. He dug around in his pocket for the tiny ear bud.

Entire minutes passed.

He finally got a grip on it with his fingers and put it back in his ear. "Control," he whispered with his finger on top of the skin just outside of his ear hole. "The bombs are all fake. You can begin your assault."

"Finn? Jake is already escorting their ringleader outside to a negotiated escape car."

What! He thought to himself, turning his head to the lobby. There were still armed hostiles there. As well as hostages who were bound, and lined up on their knees along the walls. But no sign of his brother or Cookie. It had been minutes between eavesdropping on them and getting his earwig back in. It occurred to him that a lot could happen in a few minutes.

He drew his tranquilizer pistol, and took out its dart clip, replacing it with a fresh one. Each clip had ten darts, and its pressure came from a C02 canister that lasted at least twenty clips.

Ten darts would be more than enough to neutralize all the hostiles in the lobby, he thought as he rounded the corner, hugging the left wall to allow only half the room ingress to his position.

Somebody entered the right side of his vision. It was a Banana Corps man with an assault rifle. He turned and saw an entire squad enter the lobby through the same corridor as he. They passed him by, as unlike he, they were moving in fast and hard.

The entire lobby erupted with gunfire. More squads of banana guards coming in through other entry points.

It was over in seconds. As Finn rushed into the lobby, he saw all the hostiles had been gunned down. Shot with real bullets and killed.

Finn remained standing in the lobby, registering what was happening as the banana guards took control of the building. All the remaining hostiles were dead, the bombs were fake, and the situation resolved.

He walked in a straight beeline to the guard who looked to be in charge as he removed his hat and pulled his goggles over his forehead. Without speaking, he tapped the shoulder of the one in charge.

He turned to look at him.

Finn spoke before he could ask what he wanted. "There's one incapacitated in the south corridors, one in the stairwell, and two on the roof. They're still alive, you can arrest them." He moved away, not wanting to hear his reply.

As Finn walked away, he spotted something that caught his attention. There was a downward stairwell in the middle of the lobby floor going up to the rear wall. The floor looked to have slid open to uncover it. The existence of this stairwell surprised him.

It was not in the building's blueprints.

It was surrounded by banana guards, who were guarding it off. And so he headed out the front door of the building. He came out, and saw the escape car, which Jake had taken the terrorist ringleader into, heading down the street from being right in front of the building. In about a minute, the car would brake in place and lock down its doors, and those inside would be as good as captured.

He decided to follow the trap car, and make sure at least that would go smoothly. "Make sure they don't end up killing this one at least." He said to himself, his mood sour. He ran along the street after it as it sped away.

Then the car veered right on the next intersection.

That was strange, Finn thought. If Jake was driving in the guise of somebody helping the ringleader, he ought to follow protocol and keep heading straight. He followed them around the corner, sprinting along the cobblestone street of New Florence.

The car stopped dead further along the road. He heard the Banana Guard cars coming up from behind him.

Then the driver's door of the car opened. This surprised Finn, as Jake was supposed to remain in the car until it was apprehended. Jake stepped out of the car, and he was carrying someone in his arms.

A young girl, with bold orange hair. She was unconscious, wearing a plain, grey tunic and trousers, with a belt that was basically a thin rope. The outfit wouldn't be out of place in a monastery or abbey.

Jake looked his way for only a passing glance before fleeing the other direction with the girl in his arms.

Finn gave chase, he was far away, and it was likely the Banana guard would catch up to Jake first in their cars. This was a scary prospect if Jake ended up attacking them.

Then another car came in from an off street, stopping just ahead of Jake. It was clean white, unmarked with 100% tinted windows. The back door flipped open, and Jake quickly got inside with the unconscious girl as the car took off.

Finn drew his pistol; the one that used real bullets. He continued to run after the unmarked car. It didn't matter if Jake was his brother, or that he might have a reason for whatever he was doing. His mission was still on.

The Guard cars passed Finn by, on the cobblestone streets of New Florence.

Finn stopped, and aimed his gun. He took seconds, agonizingly long seconds as the white car shrank in the distance.

He took the shot.

The car's back wheel flattened instantly, then it quickly ground off its metal base. The car lost control, then it corrected itself. It reached a bridge heading off of Manhattan, A man whom Finn recognized as Scorcher was atop the car, having gotten up through the sunroof. As the car passed onto the bridge, he whipped a ball of fire onto the road.

And a giant wall of fire erupted, gating off the bridge.

The Guard cars slammed on their brakes, some of them sidewinding. Even a small child would know that driving a car over that strong of fire might ignite the gas tank, and cause the car to explode into flame.

The wall of flame blocking off the bridge kept on burning. It must have been some kind of napalm mixture. Finn stared after, not seeing, but still watching his target escape.

"Finn, give me a sit-rep." The voice from his earwig was a different person; a man from the P.S.S. whom Finn knew.

He pressed down to talk. "I shot one of their tires, you might still be able to cut them off if you hurry."

"They'll try. Now, did you see your brother take anything out of the Tendime building?"

"Yeah, a girl with vibrant, glowing orange hair."

"I see..." There was a pause.

"Was she the terrorist ringleader?"  
"No, Princess Cookie was killed in the raid."

"Then who is she?" He had to know who his brother would disobey the agency to extract.

"This might sound strange, Finn, but I'm not allowed to answer that question."

"I see," he had a lot of questions, but knew better than to press the matter. "What are my orders?"

"Return to headquarters for debriefing. The Guard will pursue the suspects. The P.S.S. is done tonight."

"Roger that." Finn let off pressing his earwig. He felt bombarded with questions, intensified by his agitation by what the Guard did in the Tendime building. It was well before the time limit given to him to disarm the bombs, and they made their move immediately after he reported the bombs were fake, meaning they must have followed him in.

It annoyed the poo out of him, the only hostiles whose lives were spared were those he tranquilized. He was authorized to kill them, but he had it in his power to complete his mission without killing them. At least it wasn't the P.S.S., the agency he worked for that was going on shooting sprees. He would kill a hundred would-be murderers if it were the only way to save a single innocent life from becoming their victim. But it was his nature to value human life in every way possible. He wished nobody had to die.

"Dammit... just dammit." he muttered as he turned around, and walked the lit nighttime streets of New Florence.


	5. Day Two

A garage door opened underneath. Its sound muffled through a layer of flooring. She heard it through a state of dozy half-sleep. The separation between walls and floors were sound dampening by design, and yet nothing seemed able to hide from her hearing.

She sat up in bed. Her eyes didn't want to open, but it was a room she knew by heart. She didn't need to see as she got on her feet.

The garage door made more sound, this time of closing.

She made her way across the room, her bare feet tracting easily on the hard floor. Her bedroom had its own bathroom, and she made her way to it with a sluggish level of speed and posture. Her thick, raven hair was greasy and flattened, and covered her skull like a skin, with a feeling of smothering suffocation on her scalp that threatened to start itching.

It had to be very early in the morning, she thought to herself as she opened the sink tap. Splashing her face with water. The Door Lord came in and woke her every morning, meaning she woke up before that time. Who would come in this early? She asked herself, thinking about the garage door.

She showered, brushed, and got dressed, then came out of the bathroom. The large window on the other side of her bedroom showed that it was still night outside. It was really early, she thought to herself. But this didn't make her curious enough to check a clock. She had a very rigid list of priorities when she woke in the morning. And the next on it was to get something to eat.

She exited her bedroom, emerging to a horizontal walkway that overlooked a lower floor, on the other side from the row of doors. The spacious main chamber below had the active, yet calmly sparse sound made by people up and about in the morning, sounds made noticeable as soon as the door to her room had opened. Skylights high above were blackened by the dark, early morning sky. She moved up to the edge, seeing at least thirty people down on the ground floor. There was a bar against the wall on the right.

On her direct left, the walkway went into a tunnel-like enclosure, which lead out of being over the area directly beneath. That direction headed to the front area of the house.

She turned right, heading along the carpeted walkway. Directly ahead was a dead end. On the right was a spiraling staircase that went up and down from the floor she was on. She took the stairs down, in the direction of the kitchens, and the curiously active garage. Another person was coming up the steps. She headed down, and they came up, until coming in eyeshot. It was the Door Lord. Probably coming up to wake her. He made way for her to pass, smiling with a closed mouth and humming _good morning_.

As the family butler, it was the Door Lord's duty to wake people at requested times. When she was a kid, she didn't like being woken before she wanted to. Her dad wouldn't take back the order given to the Door Lord to wake her at a certain time, and so she resorted to trying to keep him out of her room. She tried everything; installing new deadbolts. Chaining the knob. Even moving furniture to barricade the door. It wasn't that she resented being woken early. She just felt challenged by the schedule she didn't choose being imposed on her.

Nothing she tried worked. The Door Lord was standing over her bed every morning, her defenses dispatched. When a conversation with her father moved to talking about that subject, all he had to say was: _"Keep trying, Marcelini. If you find a way to keep the Door Lord out of a room, any room, I'll be deeply impressed."_

As she went down the steps, she placed a hand on Door Lord's shoulder, and grinned. "Sorry, DL. Not this time."

The Door Lord shrugged his shoulders as he tipped his head left and right, humming a downward line of high pitched, cheerful notes.

He was content. She continued down the steps, down to the main floor. The house almost always had a lot of people staying or visiting. It used to bother her. She generally didn't feel relaxed around large amounts of people, especially if she didn't know most of them. But that discomfort was put to rest when her father told her: _"One who specifically wishes to avoid people is no more free of them than a rabbit in hiding is free of its predators"_ As a child, _s_ he didn't really understand what he meant, but took from it that she shouldn't be scared of the unknown, even if that unknown was a bunch of strangers in her home. This was a chain of development that made her sensitive to everybody's mindset, even that of strangers.

She still had her room if she wanted privacy. The only ones who ever came in there were the Door Lord, Penny, and other people she knew. They had the decency to knock first, so she never felt her sanctuary being violated.

As she got older, she learned that a lot of her father's business wasn't strictly legal. This, in turn implied that the well-dressed people who came and went from the Abadeer estate might be criminals or corrupt individuals. But they were all very courteous and polite to her whenever she talked to any of them, so it never really bothered her.

She felt perfectly comfortable in this home. She was almost old enough to move out, but had no reason to anytime soon.

She moved naturally through the broad, dome-like chamber with the wall bar, navigating the people around her with a routine ease. She reached a door next to the bar. It led to the kitchen. Even in this early morning, it was active, with cooking staff all around doing prep and handling a small breakfast rush.

She walked by the prep tables, taking a couple slices of bread, a freshly fried egg formed in the shape of a puck, and a freshly cut slice of cheese, putting them together into an egg sandwich. None of the staff doing prep saw it as a hindrance. There was no way of predicting precisely how much of each thing they would need ready in the day ahead, so they always prepped way more than what they thought they needed.

She stopped next to a steaming pot of red sauce. Nobody was attending it. She took the ladle, scooped up some red sauce, and dabbled it over her sandwitch. She loved all red food, especially Italian sauces, and held that there wasn't a single food on the planet that couldn't be improved by its addition.

With her sandwitch completed, she continued along the kitchen, swiftly and smoothly filing through the busy staff while taking bites out of it. At the other end of the kitchen was a door. She opened it with her free hand. It led outside. Fresh morning air came as a relief from the hot kitchen. The floors of the kitchen, and the outdoor flooring outside were seamlessly level to each other, in order to allow wheeled trays to pass without bumping. She closed the door behind her, and continued along. The door to the kitchen was in a claustrophobic, yet high-ceilinged cubby, caught at the bald spot between much more conspicuous features of the building. On her left was a stone ramp that led to the main patio; An expansive platform with tables, benches, and miniature gardens. Even in this early morning, she heard a light din of conversation up there.

On her right, down a brief flight of steps, was a narrower, railinged walkway that went all around the parts outside the mansion that didn't have an external addition.

She took another bite of her sandwitch. Then went right, going along this narrow walkway. The first floor windows were up higher than where she was walking, and so nobody inside saw her. As she went along this railinged walkway, the ground on the left began to slope down, placing her in a position of height, in spite of moving across a level walkway. She reached a corner, and rounded right.

She continued along the walkway, eventually reaching a door on the side of the structure. The door was the same color and texture as the wall around it, and nearly impossible to spot from a distance. It was completely unmarked, and there was not a single window near it.

She remained in front of it, deciding to finish her egg sandwitch before going in. When she was a little kid, in spite of growing up here, she never knew about this door, or what it led to. It was only after the three-years-older Penny was taken in that it was discovered by them together. When she finished her chores and tasks for the day, Penny would always find her, and pull her along to play around the estate. As kids, they went on all sorts of adventures together. One of those adventures led to discovering this door.

She finished her sandwitch, and opened it. Revealing a downward staircase, dimly lit by a loose row of low-set gas lamps mounted on the walls. She went down the steps, and the door slid shut silently behind her. When she and Penny first discovered this place, they wondered why it had gas lamps, when electric lights were a lot cheaper. They asked her dad about it, and he told them to try and figure it out on their own. She and Penny figured it out in their early teens, when they were brainstorming together while hanging out. They realized that the intent was to conceal the staircase, and room ahead, as not having anything electric made it invisible to the electrical grid. Following gas pipes was significantly harder, and more time consuming than diagnosing a fuse box.

The end of the steps came to a huge underground chamber. Illuminated by skylights that went up through the house, all the way up to the roof, their shafts concealed within the walls on every floor of the building above. Far to the right was the entry to a road tunnel that inclined upward, leading to a bigger entrance above ground.

An unmarked white car was parked just ahead of her. The spare tire mounted above the rear bumber didn't have any rubber, and the metal looked damaged. The windows of this car were 100% black tinted. It was impossible to see through from the outside. She spotted Penny on the other side of the hangar past the car. She had her back to her, sitting on a stool at a long table. Her jacket was off, hanging on an adjacant stool, leaving a white dress shirt with baggy sleeves.

Marcelini approached her, as she passed the car, she felt the grill; still warm from use. She saw Penny take a wet towl out of a bowl, and then wipe her eyes with it. Her auburn hair was raggled and unruly. As Marcelini approached her, she turned on the stool, setting the rag in the bowl. "'Lo Marcy."

She stopped. "Penny, were you..." She looked at the white, unmarked car. "Out all night?"

Penny ran a hand through her hair. "Marcy, unless you had an overnight epiphany about not getting involved in the business, you don't want to know."

She noted the damaged tire. "Was it dangerous? Like, were you in any danger?"

It was a personal question. Penny leaned forward off the stool, hanging, drooping, out of wanting badly to go to sleep. "Some prick shot out my tire. Luckily I was the one behind the wheel and not some dumb pillock."

"We also had," interjected another voice. A voice that was level, efficient, and almost monotonous in spite of also being gravely. She looked, and saw Scorcher coming out of the dim, gas lamp-lit bathroom to the left of the table. "My napalm mixture to cover our escape."

"Righto," affirmed Penny with a lifted arm toward him, that she promptly set back on her hip. "I had flashy, showing off his flashy flames."

"They burned hot," said Scorcher plainly as he sat to the right of Penny at at the table, facing away to look at Marcelini. "They sure took the heat off our backs."

"Speaking of heat," Marcelini replied with a crooked smile and sunk eyebrow as she indicated the unmarked car. "It can't be nearly as hot as driving around with those illegal-arse black-tinted windows."

"Well, you say that..." muttered Penny.

"I can make a mix that'll burn a hole thirty meters into the-"

"Scorcher, subject, changed." Penny snapped impatiently.

"Okay."

"Seriously," Marcelini continued saying to Penny. "You shouldn't drive that thing on the streets; it's probable cause on wheels. If any Banana Corps people see it, they'll pull you over for sure."

Penny stood up. "Thank you for your concern, Marcy, but your dad will be pissed if I talk about my assignment with a civilian."

Scorcher looked at her. "There's no risk of a leak, the package and delivery man are safely-"

"Come on, Scorcher," Penny said detachedly as she walked past him, dragging him along by an arm. "I gotta report this as soon as possible, so I can hit the sack."

Marcelini watched them leave. They took the stairs that she took to get in the underground garage, to get out.

She heard the door up top swing open, then swing and hit shut.

Now alone, she looked toward the unmarked car. She wanted to look inside, it correlating to something Penny couldn't discuss. In spite of not wanting to get involved in the family business, its existence made her home an interesting place. She walked up close to the back door of the car.

She considered opening up the car and looking inside. Should she? She asked herself.

She could learn as much as she wanted and still not break her stand to not get involved in the family business. After all, what she knew was something she could keep entirely to herself. Even if she knew everything, she wouldn't have to talk about any of it, nor even let anybody know she knew. She could explore all she wanted without being accountable.

What about the violation of privacy? Her train of thought extended to consider this. Was it really worth looking? She was having a good day anyway. "Eh, I don't need to know, I'm not greedy." She said to herself.

Who was she kidding? She rebuked herself. She was greedy, she was extremely greedy. Having a good day only made her want to make it more colorful. She came to the white, blank, boring-looking car, and opened a rear door to the interior. The upholstery was black, solid, and opaque. She saw out of the windows from inside of the car as she bent down and stuck her upper body in, propping her hands on the seat. The interior of the car was as unmarked as the exterior. Special tape was strapped around the driver's wheel and armrests that didn't leave fingerprints. The car was cold. She understood the purpose of the black tinted windows was to hide the faces of the occupants. This was not a car meant for broad daylight driving, or a pleasant tour through scenic trails.

Searching this car was a waste of time. She had revealed her presence to Penny, whom even in her tired state, would not be careless enough to leave something to find.

As she moved her person out of the car, she spotted something new.

A slight discolor, on a tiny spot of the back seat.

She moved her head closer to it. It was a hair, a single, coiled up hair. She pinched it between her index finger and thumb. Then withdrew out of the car and slammed the door shut. A close, intimate look at the hair revealed its color to be orange. A radiant orange that changed between dark and light shades in different places as she moved it.

Still looking closely at the hair held close to her face, she walked to a nearby workbench up against the wall, then took a rag that was laying atop it. She placed the hair into the rag, and folded it around it. She wanted to hang on to it, maybe put it under a microscope or find somebody who could tell her what it's from. She'd never seen anything like it. It was definitely a hair, but no person, animal, nor dye she had ever seen was capable of producing such a color.

She turned back to the underground garage. It was mostly empty. The general area around the corner she was closest to had far more things than the rest of the open floor, which was nearly all empty space. The unmarked car was the only vehicle visible. The wall on the other side to her left had a row of tall powered doors, but she had never seen them open, nor had she ever found a way to open them. There were probably more vehicles inside, but she had no idea how many, or what kind.

She headed for the stairwell out. As she traversed, she considered what to do next with her day just beginning. Ever since recently graduating high school, she'd had a lot of free time on her hands. In a routine day, this was usually the part where she headed out to town, to hang with friends, or find a good place to practice her bass. She might also take the hair to a lab or something to see what it's from. She felt a strong interest in whatever Penny and Scorcher did last night that they couldn't talk about.

Her thoughts wandered. She was in a perfect vantage point to be an impartial observer to all sorts of interesting events. Her father ran nearly all underground operations in New Florence, and had interests dotted across the entire east coast. Her best friend started working for him in a significant capacity a couple of years ago, and there was also Finn and Jake, whose work was the stuff of thriller novels.

It dawned on her, vividly, that she knew a lot of interesting people. And was in a spot to watch them, with danger and involvement not being objects. Her sense of greed for the enjoyment of life began to manifest. It throbbed, as if trapped under a stuffy film, building up in pressure and itching for a release.

She reached the top of the steps, and exited the door to the outside. The sun was now visible, and the cool morning began to warm.

It was decided! She was going to follow Penny, and eavesdrop. Penny said she was going to report to Hunson about whatever went down last night, maybe she could pick something up from their conversation. Perhaps she would pick up a clue as to where the hair came from.

She could barely contain her eagerness as she went right after coming out of the camoflaged door. The green lawns on her left, and the wall of the building on her right blurred by as she subconsciously sped up. Any convention of what particular things it was proper to get eager for was washed aside. She was excited about this because she knew how to get excited about it. She didn't care if anybody understood.

Something had been found. And now, her day had begun.

The mansion stood erect in the center of the green field. She rounded a right turn at the corner, coming to the front area. The walkway went past a parking area below on the left. A car was leaving, heading for the gate in the distance that led directly to the city. Another irregular thing she had to think in order to realize on account of growing up around it was that the Abadeer estate had as high a land value as the urban zones of New Florence. Were it not for Hunson's refusal to sell or lease the land, there would be upper-class suburban lots on it.

She reached its front doors, which, with comforting reliability, opened for her. The Door Lord's unassuming face awaited behind. She walked by without greeting him. She had already greeted him today, and knew he would not take offense to her indifference.

Uneventful was her trek from the front door to Hunson's office.

Penny and Scorcher were waiting outside the door. She saw her approach, and indicated the door with her head. "He's meeting with somebody right now, nobody goes in."

Marcelini got excited at this. A private meeting was perfect for eavesdropping, and this was the morning after whatever happened last night. Chances were good there was correlation. She walked up to the door. When Penny stepped forward, about to object, she patted her down with a hand signal. It worked.

She brought her ear up close to the door. People inside were talking, "I wanted to be spared this indignity. Talking to a man like you." The voice was as stiffy as could be, with an overtone of dispassionate monotony.

"I know who you are, and you know who I am, but that doesn't mean we know each other." The voice was Hunson's.

"You are half correct." Replied the stuffy voice. "You do not know me personally, but I know you quite well. Your actions are evident in all the things done by your organization."

"I can say the same of the... institution you are a part of."

"That institution is the Federal Government."

"And..?" Hunson expected the other man to say something more.

"What more is there to say?"

"You are a part of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, to be more precise. President Bubblegum's cabinet, to be even more precise. But you never need to bother with precision, do you?"

"Is there a point, to what you're saying?"

"And now you back out of the conversation! My point, Mister Peppermint, is that your institution survives off the hearts and minds of the people, and a big part of attaining that is to always appear blameless to them."

"Are you trying to take some kind of moral high ground, Mister Abadeer? It is indeed necessary to take a few lives, persecute quite a number of people if you want to have order and prosperity. But your kind does it for personal gain; for money and power."

"All gains in this world are personal. Anybody who says differently is either a con man or a fool."

She heard Mr. Peppermint sigh. "I cannot believe we're having this conversation."

"Me either."

"What do you hope to gain by arguing with... with me? Do you just like running your mouth?"

"I like talking, yeah. I like people." Hunson's voice was easy and calm.

"I'm sure you also like putting bullets in their head."

"Say your President starts a war; far from unlikely. She would be killing... quite a lot of people."

"It's not the same. You kill people to attain wealth."

"And the government does it for... what, exactly? Oh, just remembered. You don't like getting clear about things."

Marcelini listened on. It had always amazed her that her father was able to come up with strong thoughts on things so quickly. It was one of the things she wanted to learn from him.

Mr. Peppermint replied. "Higher causes; things more important than wealth and power. We hold the good of the people in our interests; the good of the nation."

Hunson tsked. "Wealth can feed people and erect cities. Higher, good-feeling causes cannot. Which then, do you think a ruler of men should ascribe importance to?"

Mr. Peppermint sighed. "I grow tired of this debate."

"So, then," his voice casually rose. "Why don't you tell me what you're here for?"

"To the point now, hmm?" Mr. Peppermint cleared his throat. "I'm here to make an inquiry. An agent of the Peacekeeping Strategic Services recognized one of the perpetrators in the incident last night. This description matches the profile of a man who works for... well, you."

"Who, exactly, matches this description?"

"He is known only by the alias 'Scorcher.'"

Marcelini looked at Scorcher, who was leaning on the wall across from the door, staring ahead in indifference. "Scorcher," she whispered.

He perked up.

"They're talking about you."

He cocked his head.

"The other guy in there, he's asking about you."

Penny stepped forward, "shit." She looked at Scorcher. "Someone might have seen you, last night."

Scorcher looked at Penny, then at Marcelini. Then he turned around and walked away. "I'mma go make myself scarce then." He moved briskly through the hall, away from the two of them.

Penny watched him leave. "Guess I'm making my report alone then."

Marcelini lifted an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not hot like him?"

She returned the expression. "Is that intended as some kind of pun?"

"Wha-? No, I didn't mean-"

"I am /not/ a pyromaniac."

Marcelini sobered, "Penny, listen."

She suddenly put up a hand, smirking, "That was a joke. A joke, Marcy. I get what you meant, and no, there's no way anybody saw me. Scorcher was outside the car for a bit, so he was seen." She looked down the hall the way Scorcher went. He was already out of sight. "I bet it was that same prick that shot out my tire who fingered him."

Marcelini moved her ear close to the door again. It muffled the sound behind, it would be impossible for a person of normal hearing to hear the words.

"..And the report given to you by this... Agent Werecanine." Went Hunson's voice. "States explicitly that the man he saw was one Scorcher?"

"Yes." Replied Mr. Peppermint.

"I... don't follow."

"Don't follow what, exactly?"

"Well, let's say this agent of yours said that it was Micky Mouse he saw, by the standard I'm seeing in what you're saying, you would believe that to be completely true."

"Finn Werecanine is a highly trained operative, and the P.S.S. put him through proper debriefing. He is certainly capable of remembering faces."

"And here we get to the joker in the deck!" Hunson's voice became lively. Marcelini knew, for certain, that he was pointing a finger at Mr. Peppermint.

"Joker, Mister Abadeer? I'm afraid it is now I whom doesn't follow you."

"You see, Mister Peppermint, there's no way the face that this 'Finn' saw was Scorcher. Because Scorcher doesn't have a face."

"That's a distinction in itself. There are not many people whom don't have a face-"

"Don't be thick in front of me, Mister Peppermint. If you do, I'll ask your obnoxious little frilly of a master to sent a different liason to my sphere next time."

A pause, Peppermint remained quiet.

"You see, you tiny, sneaky little man. Nobody but me, and now you, know that Scorcher doesn't have a face. He always keeps it covered it completely with linen bands."

Mr. Peppermint had no reply.

"What did this operative really see, Mister Peppermint?"

"...A man covered with linen bands."

"And who is capable of having their face concealed in that manner?"

Peppermint paused, there was a slight hiss in his voice. "Anybody..."

"So do you come to me with a case, or merely cheap tact?"

There was a sound of abruptly standing up, then shouting. "We know you're correlated! We know your people got involved in what happened last night!"

Hunson took a deep breath. He was relaxed, taking his time. Marcelini knew for certain that he was leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, and probably had his feet propped up on his desk. "Do you have proof of this?"

"We-"

"Proof that a court of law would give a hoot about?"

"...no."

"Well then I'm glad you brought this up with me to get swatted down, rather than wasting my lawyer's time."

"What do you want, Abadeer?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you sticking thorns in our side? Can you not be content with your little sphere?"

"Mister Peppermint, I have nothing to say to someone like you, on any personal level. Donny."

She heard a couple of heavy footsteps.

"Escort this man off the premises."

Peppermint's and the big guy's footsteps came up to the door. Marcelini backed away to lean on the wall on the other side next to Penny.

The door opened, revealing a short, stocky, bald man in a tailcoat. Marcelini remembered seeing him on television. He was the man who announced President Bubblegum in her inaugural speech.

The small man made eye contact with Penny, then with her, then continued in the direction to their left not stopping. Donny accompanied him, closing the door behind them and walking only a meter behind. The much taller Donny made slow strides that contrasted Mr. Peppermint's rapid tip-tapping.

They shrank in the distance, eventually turning a corner.

Marcelini got even more pumped. The clues kept coming up. Tiny little giblets of information and detail that made the picture of what occurred last night, while she was sleeping, all the more vivid.

"Penny, you can come in now." Called Hunson's voice.

She went up to the door. Marcelini put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

She looked back at her, her eyes were sagged down with dark bags under them.

"That Peppermint guy is heading to the middle area, you want me to make sure he doesn't see?"

Penny paused for a second, processing what she just said. Then she smiled crookedly, narrowing one eye. "Nice try Marcy, but if you want to stay an impartial observer, I advise you start keeping your nose out of this."

Marcelini backed back against the wall, crossing her arms. "I liked you better when you were dim. You just had to get wise on me these past few years."

Penny returned her expression, it was a pleasant expression. "I love ya too Marcy." She went into Hunson's office, shutting the door behind her.

There was nothing left for this lead. She let her arms drop, bumping off the wall as she went right, heading farther west from the middle area, the opposite direction Donny took Mr. Peppermint.

The hallway passed by a stairway on the right, and rows of doors on the left. It ended with a two-step elevation leading to a broad room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all wood finish. It was a recreational room.

She scanned the room, and her surveillance of the room stopped at one person.

Her whole day since waking had welcomed unfamiliar, unreactionary elements into her mind. These were things that normally would be cycled out or remain static 'till she went to sleep again. But all of her actions and decisions since waking did not have conventional motivations. She hadn't done anything routine. And now, this irregular expedition to a new pattern of behavior reached a climax. What she was doing was not aimless. Anybody looking at it would call it aimless, and there was no evidence it was not.

No evidence it was not aimless, except what she felt.

She approached the person. He was slouched in a recliner by the window, his eyes shaded by a newspaper.

This was the one, the one who held all the answers. The release, the final explanation that would clarify everything. And she knew exactly how she was going to get it out of him. The only context of this moment for her was within this day. None of her memories, none of her experiences mattered right now. She could do something completely insane; walk across the room naked, without concern. She reached the man in the recliner, approaching from behind.

She leaned over his head. Past the chair was a window. Nobody would see what she was doing. She gently took the newspaper off his face. "Hey, Jake." She whispered in a high pitched tone.

Jake Werecanine murmured, slowly opening his eyes to the light.

She pulled a switchblade, and wrapped her arms around his neck in what would resemble a neck hug from behind, positioning the switchblade in a place he could see it. "Ya takin' a nap?"


	6. Echos of Old Italia

The scenario remained still, without incident or advancement. Marcelini was behind Jake. Jake was slouched in a recliner. And she had a knife to his neck.

Not only was Jake not supposed to be here, but his napping suggested he was awake last night.

His correlation with the events last night, which Marcelini was sticking her nose into, was almost guaranteed.

"Marcy..." he said, pulling out of a state of drowsy day-sleep to register what was happening.

"Lo' Jake!" She said in a light, high pitched tone of cheery craziness. "We need to talk, if ya don't mind." She didn't move the knife away from his neck.

Jake's eyes widened, becoming stone serious. "Marcy, play-time is over."

Jake's tone was hectic; serious. But this didn't take her out of her trance. "This isn't, Jake. It can't be. It's far too..." She grinned crazily. "Too _fun_ to be play time."

"Marcy!" He shouted abruptly. His pistol was out.

She wasn't expecting him to pull. The situation had now become serious. Without intimidation, her only defense was if she actually did cut his throat. Obviously her farce was over, she wanted to take the knife away and back off.

She hesitated.

Jake's gun went off, ringing through the lounge with earsplitting noise.

There was a second, an agonizingly long second of perfect, silent stillness. Jake's gun was aimed up and backward, in the direction of Marcelini's head, smoking from the discharge.

She felt a slight pressure on the top of her head. And then blood ran down her face in narrow, droplet-wide streams that split over her nose, and then reconverged, adorning her face with lines of red. It gathered at her chin, and dripped off onto the floor and headrest of Jake's recliner.

The first thing Marcelini did, as her senses returned to her, was let her tongue out and taste the blood. It had a pleasant flavor of metal and rust.

Jake was looking up, at the ceiling. She followed his look, and saw part of a limp body through a ventilation grate. The person's head, and one of his shoulders were visible. The blood poured out of a hole in the ceiling next to the grate. The bullet had gone into his upper torso.

From his recliner, Jake backed his head more to look directly at Marcelini. He saw her absently tasting the blood on her face. "Marcy, stop that. You don't know what-"

"Not to worry." She said to him in a calm tone and pace that cut him off, letting her continue. "I'm AB positive. I can receive any blood."

He was frowning. "I'd like to get out of my seat, if that wouldn't be too much trouble."

She realized she still had a knife to his neck. Embarrassed, she withdrew it away from his neck, and then stepped away.

Then, realizing that what happened was undoubtedly a scene, she looked around at everybody else in the lounge.

Everybody was up to the windows, staring out of them.

This was strange to her. Jake's gun was extremely loud. What could be outside that would draw attention more than that?

Disregarding Jake, and any dilemma that she might have with her situation with him, she moved briskly to the nearest window.

Airplanes passing overhead in the sky, and men in parachutes landing outside. This was the scene which grabbed everybody's attention. The men had machine guns, rifles, and face-concealing outfits. Their routes after landing and taking off their chutes all gravitated toward the mansion. It wasn't hard to deduce that some of them landed on the roof. The whole scene outside was overwhelmed by the crackling of gunfire, broken by booming explosions.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Jake standing there. "Marcy," he said hastily. "Those people are mercenaries. We have to get out of-"

"I need a gun." She cut him off, oblivious to his apparent anxiety.

Jake was taken aback a bit as he looked at his chrome-plated .40 caliber. "I can't give you my gun!" He emphasized 'my'.

"Fine, then give me your other gun."

"I like my other gun..." He rebutted in a slightly crabby tone.

"Jake..." She held his gaze in hers. "You need to understand something: I know what's going on right now."

He blinked a couple of times. More gunshots rang outside. "Yeah... I think I do. You really do."

"And having a gun may make the difference between life and death, yes?"

Jake inhaled a bit, then walked the brief distance back over to his chair. He placed his foot onto the armrest, and then lifted his pant leg. A gun holster was strapped on his lower leg. When he was finished, he turned around and handed her a small, concealable pistol, which she accepted without a word. "That's my Walther PPK." Jake said. "Seven bullets, plus one in the chamber."

She turned off the safety, and held it pointed upward. "A James Bond fan, are you? This is the gun he uses."

"Now would be a lovely time to be James Bond." Jake headed toward the door out of the lounge. Marcelini followed close behind. "We have to get to the underground garage. There's a tunnel we can escape through." He put his back to the wall next to the door. The gunshots outside become more frequent. He looked across, at Marcelini. "We can't go looking for your dad, Marcy. But he can take care of himself."

Marcelini shut her eyes a bit, taking several seconds. "I... understand, what's going on," she repeated, having said this a minute ago.

"Right then..." Jake said, still worried. He took point, opening the door first with his gun out and ready.

* * *

Hunson Abadeer was in his office when they came. A crack squad of commandos armed with machine guns. He'd dismissed Donnie, his bodyguard, leaving him alone.

They kicked the door down and charged into the room. Some aimed their rifles at him while others panned their vision to every part of his office. In seconds, he was surrounded by a circle of aimed weapons.

"Hunson Abadeer, you've meddled in the affairs of your betters for the last time." The commander of the unit said.

Hunson was calm, composed at his desk, seemingly indifferent to the men with guns aimed at him. He pulled a purple pendant out from under his suit jacket and took a long, almost too long sniff of it.

"If you've any last words, I'll relay them to my employer."

"I've just got one ting to ask, for all you nice trespassers." He said calmly.

"I haven't got all-"

"Who... is the one..." He had a long, patient, silent pause, "about to suck up... all of your souls?" His tone was light and easy as he said this.

Nobody had any reply.

Suddenly the lights went out in the office, and the window was sealed by a drop gate. It was pitch black in the room.

Save for a pair of red, subtly glowing eyes.

* * *

Marcelini and Jake Werecanine made it to a little-used stairway shaft without running into any soldiers. As they went down, Marcelini spoke, "I'm sure you'll agree that at this point, you've not any right to keep me in the dark about any of this, yes?"

Jake turned the next corner of the square-shaped stair shaft, Marcelini following right behind. "I took something from the bowels of the Tendime Bank Building last night. Your dad's people helped me escape."

"What did you take? Is it the reason we're under attack?"

"Something very dangerous; a weapon. And yes."

They continued down the long flight of steps. "My dad was talking to someone last night; said he'd have someone over right away. The guy on the other end was you?"

They ran into a mercenary, who was coming up the steps as they were about to come down the next flight from a corner spot. He lifted his rifle to fire at them.

Jake, who was taking point, pointed his gun as well.

Both weapons discharged. Marcelini, who was several steps up from Jake observed the scene, having not the nerve or reflexes to get involved as quickly.

Jake fell backward against the wall, and the soldier fell backward down the flight of steps.

Marcelini went past Jake, down the steps to the wounded soldier. The trance she was in before had not receded, in fact it was rising, stronger than ever. She kicked his rifle away, and crouched down to be face to face, grabbing his collar to bring him closer. "Who do you work for?" She asked.

The mercenary looked her in the eyes, now terrified. He'd been hit in the gut. "A... a private contractor called-"

She took her pistol and aimed it down and backward. Then fired. The merc screamed in pain, the bullet having gone into his kneecap. "I mean who organized this attack!" She screamed. "Who is your client!" She heard Jake coming down the steps slowly, tentatively. He didn't say anything.

"I... I don't know." He said in a tone that was half scream, half whimper. "I was transferred a few days ago, they don't tell me anything."

She shot him in the forehead, exploding the backside of his skull. Then she stood up, looking down at the body and holding the gun naturally at her side.

"Marcy, what's gotten into you..." Jake exclaimed in a low voice.

She kept looking at the body. Then, her senses began to return. Her breathing became sporadic as she looked at the gun in her hand, then at the body. "Oh my god..." She'd never before used a gun for anything but recreational shooting. And had never even seen a dead body in her life, much less killed someone. "What have I done!" She shouted, terrified as she gripped her head between her hands.

Jake grabbed her shoulder and turned her around to face him. "Open your eyes, Marcy." It was a direct request without any rhetoric.

She opened them.

He looked at them closely, then nodded. "You've been injected with Purple."

"What's Purple?"

"A drug with a strong psychological effect on the recipient. It also makes your eyes look different while it's in your system."

"Is that... what made me..." She wanted to just scream and run. The sight of the soldiers spattered brains unsettled her. Her eyes shut again.

More gunshots erupted, three in rapid succession. She jumped her head up, startled, and saw Jake's pistol at the left side of her vision, aimed downward and smoking. Further down the steps was another soldier, who'd fallen back against the wall and slid to the floor, dead. Three bullet holes, not far from each other, had punctured through him in the upper middle area of his torso. The soldier had a submachine gun, which fell to the ground next to him.

Marcelini looked slowly to the left, up the stops at Jake, who had turned to look at her. "This is life or death, Marcy." He said. "I'd have finished him off if you hadn't."

She looked down, and saw a bullet wound off on the side of his abdomen. "You're hit." It must have come from the first soldier, when they both shot at each other.

"I'll live." he said as he went past her, limping down the steps toward the second dead soldier. She saw a small exit wound, implying the bullet had gone clean through him. This was actually a less grave wound than if the bullet had stopped inside his body. She saw him holster his gun, and pick up the second dead soldier's submachine gun, holding it in his right hand with the shoulder strap going over his right shoulder to hold it up. He gave her a passing glance, and continued down the stairwell. She followed.

* * *

Every soldier in Hunson's office was killed. Some were stabbed, others shot in the back with suppressored pistols. One's neck was broken; Donny stood over this one.

The walls of the office had opened in a dozen different places, behind which were small booths large enough for a man to hide inside. Over the bodies of the soldiers stood an array of black-suited men with the exception of Donny's sweater vest. Most had pistols, others used knives. Donny's gun remained holstered

Hunson remained sitting relaxedly behind his desk. "Good job, everyone." He said naturally as he took out a handkerchief and wiped a spat of blood that got on his face. "Ash."

One of the black suits was wiping the blood off a metal spike, it had a handle, and could almost be a wand if not for its keen point at the end. His hair went past his shoulders, and was shaved completely in some areas of his scalp. "Yeah, boss?" He said as he inspected his weapon.

"Call the nice Police Captain, and remind him that this invasion of US soil is not an excuse for his men to come in here and do as they please.

Ash went to the phone on Hunson's desk and turned it toward him. Then he proceeded to dial the Captain's direct office number, punching one digit at a time by turning the dial, then letting it roll back before inputting the next.

"The rest of you except Donny, head out and help with the mess out there." They filed out of the room, their weapons still out.

Hunson stood up, turning to his window. The turn of a switch lifted the drop gate shielding it. The revealed scene outside showed the surrounding open area to be littered with the bodies of the mercenaries who landed by chute.

The estate was littered with sheds and sub-buildings, all of which served as disguised machine gun nests on account of the attack. These widely spaced buildings were the only real terrain in an otherwise completely open space within the estate, rendering anybody outdoors an easy target for gunfire. Only a fraction of the attacking force made it inside the main building.

"My betters..." he spat the word as he overlooked the bodies littering his lawn. "A reeking cornucopia of incompetence." Donny and Ash were the only ones remaining in the office to hear this.

"Were you expectin' this to happen, Mister Abadeer?" Donny asked, curious.

"Yes, but not this soon." He was pinching his forehead, deep in thought. "There might be stragglers..." He turned to Donny. "I want you to find my daughter. Make sure she's alright and get her out of here."

The sizeable man nodded. "Say no more, Mister Abadeer." he walked briskly out of the office, pulling his revolver to a ready to fire position.

Ash finished the phone call, and set it back on the receiver. "We've got a problem on the law's end. Captain Ruth B. Gilligan says he can't stay out of it. His men are coming right now."

"That is a problem..." Hunson muttered as he looked back out at the window. If the Banana Corps stormed the estate, it was almost a guarantee they'd find incriminating evidence. "Somebody's got the good Captain on bankroll."

"You know what we gotta do, Boss." Ash said in a low, focused tone.

"Yeah..." His demeanor was relaxed, almost melancholy. "It's a shame. This is my daughter's childhood home." After a few long seconds, he turned to Ash, who was waiting patiently next to his desk. "Make sure Scorcher gets the word, yes?"

* * *

Marcelini and Jake made it to the underground garage without any further encounters. They used a concealed door at the bottom of the stairwell which led to it. Jake's bullet wound had made him weak, and she was forced to support him with his beefy left arm over her shoulders. He remained holding the salvaged machine gun in his right hand.

They opened the door leading to the garage, and she panned its span for mercs.

There were four of them, all clustered in one corner. They saw her, and one of them pointed her way.

Jake fired his machine gun in their direction, holding down the fully automatic fire for a few long seconds as the weapon unleashed a spray of bullets into that corner. The four mercs quickly became four riddled corpses. After they were dead, he sagged again. "Marcy, get us to door number four."

She moved them both, supporting a lot of his weight as she walked them along the wall, then past the first large sliding door. "As soon as we're out of here I'm getting you to a doctor, Jake."

His head shook. "No, you can't take me to a hospital."

"It's not up for discussion, Jake." She said firmly. "Without medical treatment, you'll die." They passed the second large sliding door. Some gunshots could still be heard above, but they'd mostly quieted down.

"Take me to the Nightosphere; the nightclub owned by your father. It's a safehouse."

"A safehouse without any doctors." She rebutted. "What's the point if you're dead?"

"I know..." He coughed. "I know a retired Army surgeon, from the Euro War. I can call him to the safehouse. He can treat bullet wounds." His legs became weaker.

"Dammit, Jake." His weight became too much for her. She laid him down, moving him to her left to sit back against the wall. As she stood straight again, she looked down at him, watching him catch his breath. The shock from killing the merc in the stairwell had subsided, and the sensation; the trance, began to edge back into her consciousness. "Jake Werecanine, I never asked: What are you doing here?"

Jake looked up at her from hearing this seemingly simple question. He chuckled, then restrained himself, as chuckling hurt. "Before the P.S.S. Before anything else, really, I was a professional criminal."

Her head crooked slightly. "You..."

"I stole things. Valuable, well-guarded things. Had my own team and we tore things up in the old days. Your father was one of my contacts, and we did a lot of business together."

"How did you get into Peacekeeping Strategic Services, then? How did you pass the background check?"

"My background was clean; I was never even indicted for anything. Neither me, nor anybody I worked with divulged their real name. And with me and my brother in the P.S.S., none of my old 'friends' could touch us. Else they'd be cop-killers."

"And last night you called in a favor from an old friend."

"After I was prepped to go into the Tendime Bank building undercover, I was left alone for a minute, during which I gave Hunson a call."

Her mind went to the glowing orange hair she'd found in the unmarked car earlier that morning. "What the hell did you steal?"

"I don't quite know, but I knew I had to get it out of the hands it would have stayed in had I not stolen it." He climbed back onto his feet, having recovered some energy. "We stashed it before coming here. Only me, Penny and Scorcher know where it is now." He headed along the wall, his back to her.

"So this entire mess is your fault!" Marcelini shouted after him.

He stopped. She saw his bald, round head shake left and right. "Marcy, your father has powerful enemies. With or without my shenanigans, these enemies would have, sooner or later, made a move on him, and on you, being his family." He looked back at her, his bulldog-like face was contorted into a defiant look. "I don't enjoy blame games." he turned forward again, and kept walking slowly, weakly. "Now come on."

She was extremely angry at Jake, but he was her friend, so she had to at least try to see it from his perspective.

They reached the fourth garage door. Jake turned a set of metal dials on a keypad next to it, once they were set to the combination, he pressed a switch. The door released, and was pulled open by a spring-loaded mechanism inside.

On the other side of the huge door was an armored vehicle. It looked vaguely like a truck, and its size was comparable to that of a combine harvester, with two front wheels, and two sets of treads in the rear in place of rear wheels. Marcelini couldn't believe that something like this was kept under her home for so long. "This... will definitely get us past the mercenaries."

Jake limped over toward the passenger's door. "It also has to get us past every cop in New Florence. You're driving."

She looked his way, surprised. "Does this kind of vehicle need any special training..?"

He stepped up on the first metal step beneath the cab, and opened the passenger's door, "Can you drive a pickup?"

"Yeah." She'd driven a stick shift before.

"Then you can drive a halftrack." He got in his seat and shut the door, "Come on, Marcelini."

She went to the driver's side. There were two tall steps before reaching the floor of the cab.

* * *

Finn Werecanine was searched for the fifth time inside the Gold House. They'd taken away his gun before he even got out of the car, and every silent, suit-wearing professional bodyguard he passed was watching him like a hawk. He had his arms spread out and waited patiently for the Secret Serviceman to search his cavities.

"He's clean." He announced before backing away from Finn, who let his arms drop.

"President Bubblegum will see you now." Spoke another guard by a pair of solid, wooden double-doors ahead of Finn. They were opened for him, and he walked through. Then they were shut.

The desk of the office was unoccupied. She was standing faced away from the entrance, right in front of a tall window off to his right. Orange outdoor lighting and a dim morning light projected its color onto a milk-white pantsuit. Her pink hair was done into a ponytail that barely went down past her shoulders. She turned her head, looking his way. "It's been awhile, Finn."

"Madam President," he saluted her. His composition was stiff and disciplined.

President Bubblegum had a small smile. "At ease, Agent Werecanine." She turned around and walked in front of her desk, standing in front of it and leaning back against its edge. "Can you guess... why, I wanted to meet with you in person?" Her undershirt had no tie, but rather a triple-stack of white frills.

He tried to be at ease, but couldn't manage it. "I... if I had to guess, Ma'am, it's because of what happened last night. The attack on the Tendime Bank building."

"You aren't accountable for your brother's actions. I hope you're aware of that."

"Jake isn't a bad person!" Finn blurted out, then immediately reigned himself in. "Whatever he did, I'm sure he had a good reason..."

She giggled a little, then, her expression sobered, and then became slightly sorrowful. "He'll be given a fair trial, Finn. That's... all I can guarantee in regard to him."

He took a deep, heavy breath, still standing in the middle of the office. They were alone. "I suppose that's all I can ask.

President Bubblegum nodded at this. "But that isn't the main reason I called you here; not why I needed to speak with you, alone and in person."

"Ahem..." he didn't want to speak to her unless spoken to. "Why, then, Madam President..?" He said tentatively.

She looked down at the floor, frowning a bit. She crossed one leg over the other, balancing atop her desk with both hands. Then she looked up, looking him in the eye, her expression was dark, one could even say she looked afraid. "Do you remember the name... von Lichtenstein?"


	7. Coming of the Reaper

"Do you remember the name... von Lichtenstein?"

Finn was in President Bubblegum's office, standing in the center. She was sitting on her desk, her legs crossed and her arms propped. The look on her face was tense, perhaps even afraid. "Yes I do," he answered.

She nodded slowly. "He's the reason I called you here. Years ago, I had him incarcerated in Treesap Rock; that's the codename of a little-known prison complex in Alaska."

"I'm aware of this as well Ma'am," Finn said. "I was a part of your security detail when you visited the place. So was..." he stopped himself, deciding not to bring up his brother again.

She continued, "von Lichtenstein has killed more people than the Bubonic Plague. The Great European War was his stomping ground; his chaotic paradise. It was thanks only to a team of remarkable men led by Codename: Billy that he was finally captured, and his rampage of death ended."

"I definitely know about Billy," Finn was bashfully scratching behind his head. "He's a... personal hero of mine."

Bubblegum rose to her feet, and walked back over to the window, both her hands were clasped behind her back. "von Lichtenstein has escaped from Treesap Rock. We don't know how yet. My staff only got the call from the Prison Warden last night. But he's free, and he's out there."

He couldn't see her face, and had no idea what expression it had. "I... think I see where this is going.".

"I wouldn't hand this assignment to anybody lightly, Finn."

Finn was nodding, his arms crossed. "If you think I'm the right guy for the job, then I'll try not to disappoint you, President Bubblegum."

"Finn." She snapped, then recomposed herself, her back still to him. "von Lichtenstein is dangerous beyond imagining. You have to understand that. I'm sending you to your probable death."

"Well..." he wanted to counter her pessimistic appraisal. "If Billy's team was able to beat him..."

Her head was shaking, slowly, solemnly. "This detail is not written anywhere in the history books: More than half of Billy's team was killed, by von Lichtenstein, before they were able to corner him. Out of a team of twelve, only he and two others survived the mission."

The dread sank in. The revelation that his childhood hero had come so close to failure, and endured real sacrifice to accomplish his mission caused his perspective to sober; to darken, well out of his comfort zone.

She took a long breath. "A man like von Lichtenstein was never meant to exist in this world. With his ability; his talent for dealing death, he could kill anybody he wanted." Her next inhale had breaks in her breath. Finn still didn't see her face. "He may even... no, I know that he'll come for me. Sooner or later."

Even Bonnibel Bubblegum was afraid of this man. Finn suddenly wanted to take this as seriously as possible. "Who did he work for? During the war, I mean."

"Who else? Our, and Britain's enemy. The Union between the New Roman Empire, and the young nation of Germany. Together they formed a military superpower of nightmarish scale, and threatened to swallow all of Europe. The United States, Great Britain; an important ally and trade partner of ours, even Russia, all paid an immense cost to gain a favorable position in that... 'Great European War,' a position from which to negotiate a ceasefire."

"Which led to a lasting peace," Finn completed. "But the Union remains a significant military threat to this day, and the political parties which started that war are still in power."

President Bubblegum turned, and headed back to the front of her desk. She was slightly amused at Finn's history knowledge. "It's a precarious diplomatic climate, to be sure. It could lead to another war, even worse than the last. However..." She was shaking her head. Then she looked up at his face. "That kind of thing, you needn't concern yourself with. Your concern is finding von Lichtenstein, and stopping him, by any means necessary."

He nodded at this, happy to have a job with a far more straightforward solution. "I'm authorized to use lethal force against him?"

"Any, means, necessary." She repeated solemnly.

"I'll understand if I can't know, but why did you keep him alive in the first place?"

"You can. Your clearance became high enough as of your assignment to this mission. He got his orders directly from his leaders in Rome. We thought... that we could get something out of him, to implicate them."

"And you couldn't break his legs or something?" It seemed ridiculous to Finn, to keep such a dangerous person in top condition. To the point of being every bit as dangerous as before as soon as he escaped confinement.

She shook her head. "Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden by the Constitution. The law must be upheld, warts and all, or else we have no law."

"I... understand, I guess." He was looking away, deep in his own thoughts. "I'll need a team. For the von Lichtenstein manhunt, I mean. Equipment as well. A couple of good but low-profile vehicles wouldn't hurt either. I-" he stopped himself, scratching behind his neck bashfully. "I don't know if you're the one to talk to about that kind of thing."

Bubblegum reached behind and took a dossier that was laying on her desk. She handed it to Finn, who accepted it without a word. "That contains all the intelligence we currently have on von Lichtenstein, most of it gathered before his capture during the war; known associates, his criminal record, everything. Any future intel we gather on him will be shared with you posthaste."

Finn weighed it, it was quite thick.

She then handed him a small binder. "This contains the codenames and credentials of a large list of operatives from various agencies, including the P.S.S. You can choose any one and any number of them for your team."

Finn was nodding at this. "Where do I start?"

"This is going to come to you as news. In fact it will be broadcast as breaking news in about an hour. It will be where you'd want to start. The Abadeer Estate in New Florence has been attacked."

* * *

Captain Ruth B. Gilligan of New Florence's Banana Corps Department had brought all the men he had on call. As soon as he heard of the Abadeer Estate being attacked he immediately occupied the place, taking advantage of jurisdiction law to search the home of one of America's most notorious kingpins. He was in a circle of police cars and armed officers that formed around the mansion in the center high ground of the estate. The area was littered with the bodies of foreign mercenaries. The task to gather them up and attempt to ID each one was ignored.

His men had found and arrested a large number of Abadeer's people, who were in the outside sheds and minor structures, manning machine gun nests. They didn't dare shoot cops, as the legal penalties for doing so were insurmountable.

The situation was under his control. He had the estate, and it was almost a guarantee they would find incriminating evidence, putting Hunson away for good. The mercenaries who attacked the place were not his problem nor his department, so he didn't bother with them.

Then, as if instantaneously, the mansion caught on fire. Every section and every room inside showed blazing orange through the windows. Ruth B. Gilligan couldn't believe it. All of the evidence and arrests awaiting him inside the building had been suddenly taken from his hands. There was no way he could send his men in there.

He immediately turned to a random officer and fingered him. "You! Alert the Fire Department." The officer complied, halfway entering the driver's side of his car to use the radio.

Ruth turned back to the fire. It had started up too quickly, and in too many places at once to be an accident.

As if to compound his encounter with craziness, he heard gunshots behind him, in the direction of the gate. He turned, and what he saw was a halftrack the size of a combine harvester, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere, rolling across the green fields. The two men near the two cars parked to block the open gateway were shooting at it as it approached them. Ruth had no answer to any of this as he observed the scene from his spot in the perimeter around the burning mansion.

The halftrack did not slow down, and the two policemen at the gate dove away just in time to avoid getting hit. The hulking vehicle ramped up onto the two cars blocking the way, flattening the front halves of both vehicles as it cleared the gateway, escaping into the city proper.

* * *

Finn's reaction to this was so strong that he showed nothing on the surface, remaining still. "Who, and why?"

"It happened at roughly the same time as von Lichtenstein's escape. The attackers were foreign mercenaries, and we suspect that their payroll came from Rome in Italy. Therefore we're assuming, until new intelligence is gathered, that whatever reason they sprung von Lichtenstein has to do with the reason they attacked the Abadeer Estate. There's also your brother's involvement to consider."

"Jake is my brother." Finn stated. "We're not related by blood, but we grew up together. Why am I, of all people being given this mission if there's a family element that could get in the way?"

"I handpicked you to lead this mission," Bubblegum said. "And specifically wanted to brief you myself. Your track record is beyond exceptional, and your loyalty beyond question. I could care less who your family is. I choose you."

* * *

The Purple in Marcelini's system had taken a spike when she drove the halftrack out the concealed entrance from the underground garage and out onto the field. The two cops firing at her, their bullets bouncing off the windshield, her nearly crushing them, and flattening their cars as she made her escape. It was all exciting, when she knew her normal, un-purpled self would find it terrifying and unnerving. She had no idea who injected her with it, when or why, and it still got to her that she executed a man back at the mansion. But overall, it was an experience. Not a trauma, or an ordeal, but an experience.

As she drove through the streets of New Florence, she noted that the streets were empty and cleared. Obviously marshal law had been declared on account of the foreign planes and her house having been a warzone.

She looked over at Jake, who had his shirt off, revealing his stocky, muscular upper body, and the entry and exit bullet wounds on his left side, which both let out trickling streams of blood. He was tearing up his shirt, turning it into a makeshift bandage.

"Might want to call your retired Army surgeon now. The sooner you see a doctor the better," she said, looking back over toward the road. She knew that he had a portable phone.

"Oh splitz! Thanks for reminding me." He took out his portable camera phone as he rolled down his window. He then tossed it out the window onto the sidewalk. "Can't well be having the P.S.S. trace me through that. Good call, Marcy."

"Jake what the flip?"

he waved her objection down. "I can't make any phone calls, especially not through that."

"Then what about your doctor?"

"I will send somebody to go and get him, soon as we reach the Nightosphere. Speaking of which, are you sure you know where you're going?"

Marcelini turned the massive vehicle rightward at an intersection, barely slowing down. The halftrack was headed east, in the direction of the docks. "We'll have to ditch the vehicle before we get close. Can you walk?"

"There's a row of garages behind the nightclub. We can park in one of those."

"Wait, really?" She'd been to the Nightosphere before. There were indeed rented garage spaces near the building, but she'd always thought they were used by random renters.

"Yeah, like I said: The place is a safe-house."

The docks, and the ocean became visible over the next hill in the city. The surrounding architecture became pointedly more modest. The Nightosphere was reached by way of a little-known one-way street off the main street, but she didn't take that way, as they were headed for the garage, which was accessed by a different road.

The area they came to was formed around the docks. It was a sector of the city referred to as Wizard City, on account of its residents being kooks, eccentrics and bearded bums who came to the docks looking for work, and usually ended up finding it from employers who would actually hire them. If not at the docks, then at low-end restaurants, retailers, pubs and apartment complexes. Like a confined culture that accepted its own by having those doing the accepting being its own themselves. Most of the owners of the buildings and establishments were also kooks and eccentrics.

"Marcy..." Jake was trailing. "You saw what happened to your home, right? As we were escaping?"

The Purple in her system had subsided. "Yeah, it was attacked. That's why we're in this situation right now." She slowed down as they went downhill, and turned the halftrack onto a smaller street. Even here the streets were deserted.

"No, I mean... after that."

She shook her head, having not a clue what he was talking about. They reached a turn into an open asphalt space, in front of a building comprised of a row of large garage doors. The Nightosphere was on an elevated concrete platform above, which could be reached via a stairwell.

"It was on fire, Marcy. The whole building, in flames."

She slowed the vehicle in the asphalt clearing, bringing it slowly to a complete stop before putting the shift stick to neutral. She was leaning forward, looking down. "I'm... trying, Jake. I'm trying not to get emotional about this until we're in the clear."

Jake was surprised, having no idea that this was her mindset. "Marcy, I'm..."

"Something's probably happened to my dad, too. But I can't think about that right now."

"Sorry..."

"You have a way of opening one of these doors, right?" She asked in dismissal of the previous topic. The halftrack was still parked in front of the garage building.

"Oh, yeah... I think this rig's got a key somewhere." He got to work opening the glove box and browsing his right hand through it.

* * *

In an open room of the P.S.S. headquarters, Finn Werecanine was standing in front of a lineup of individuals who all wore casual civvies, but carried themselves erect, standing at attention like trained military people. They were the team which Finn had chosen for his mission. It was several hours after he left the Gold House, and that's all the time it took to assemble the people he wanted.

Finn had an open binder in his hand, and read off it. "Thank you all for accepting this mission. I'm Finn Werecanine, the acting commander. You may address me by my codename: The Dog Man." He walked to the end of the row. "Your code names are as follows. You're encouraged to review those of your teammates and commit them to memory:" He passed the first, who was a woman,"Fionne." He continued walking passing each person in turn. "Cake," he said to the second of the only two females in the team. "Lumpy, Gum Ball, Marshal and Monochrome." he said to the last four as he passed them. "And finally B.M.O." He said this to a computer screen on a wheel tray. "None of us get to see him in person, but he'll be our support from afar."

" _Hello everybody!_ " B.M.O.'s high-pitched, effeminate voice declared from the speakers next to the monitor as it displayed the waveform of the sound.

Finn went back to his spot at a distance from them. "This mission comes from the President herself. Its importance, as well as its hazard cannot possibly be over-exaggerated. Before you're all briefed, I'd like to offer you each one last chance to back out. Your refusal, should you choose, will not be placed as a negative on your records, and there will be no hard feelings."

Not one of them spoke out or raised a hand. They wanted this.

"Excellent." Finn said. "Our mission is this: We're gonna go on a manhunt."

* * *

On a deserted road in Alaska, a lone man drove alone in a police car. There was no key in the ignition, but rather the wiring had been tampered with. As was the driver's door lock. A single, flat head screwdriver lay in the passenger's seat as the only tool he needed to pilfer the vehicle.

His hair went past his shoulders, and was void of pigment, his skin nearly as much so. A pair of dark bags settled under a pair of green, dispassionate eyes.

He pulled up to a gas station in the outskirts of a nearby port town. No other cars were visible in the lot. He got out, wearing a long, black wool coat against the mild cold. After filling the tank of his stolen cop car, he walked into the building.

The clerk was standing, still and calm behind the counter. To the left after entering were rows of shelves, and past the counter on the right was a small enclosed back room. The green-eyed man had his left hand in a coat pocket as he walked up to the counter, standing counter to the clerk and saying nothing, but wearing a calm, yet strangely exaggerated crooked smile on his face. He looked to the right, at the police car parked outside.

The clerk, nervous, looked that way as well, then back at the green-eyed man. Still saying nothing.

His small grin, that subtracted zero concentration from his eyes, became harder as he started nodding. The clerk had said nothing about the fact that he drove a cop car, but clearly wasn't a police officer.

His left hand was out, still maintaining eye contact with the clerk as he aimed a suppressed pistol at a wall to his left and fired several quiet shots, through the wall into the backroom.

There was a pained cry of death that came from the room. Two more men, armed with machine guns ran out of the door from the backroom, their guns readied to shoot him.

He turned his head for one of his green eyes to see them, and shifted his outward-aimed pistol further left. He fired two shots in rapid succession. Each went through the forehead of each of the two armed men. They dropped on the floor, dead before letting off a single shot.

Now ignoring the clerk, the Green-eyed man turned around, walking calmly toward the shelves. A foot-long razor blade was in his right hand, held underhand. He came to the end of a shelving unit he couldn't see past, and stabbed his blade into the space round the corner, not slowing his calm walk.

The blade went into the skull of another armed man, who was ducking behind the cover of the shelving unit waiting to shoot him when he passed by. He pulled his blade out, letting the man drop dead. One more popped his head out from the next shelving unit, his machine gun, in a split second, being lowered to fire at the green-eyed man.

He didn't get the chance. A pistol shot found its way to his head the instant it popped out of cover.

The ambush men were from the local Banana Corps department, and they were all dead. the green-eyed man slowed his breath, back down to a deliberate pace as he lowered his weapons. He picked up a snack food bag, turned around and walked back to the counter.

The clerk was terrified, cowering as the green-eyed man set the bag on the counter. His weapons were stowed, and he looked calm. The snack food was a soy imitation of escargot; a French dish that involved cooking snails.

The Green-eyed man continued looking at the clerk, not reacting or retaliating at the fact that he had cooperated with the cops that tried to ambush him. He opened his mouth to speak, in a smooth, low, calm voice: "Do you feel... cold?" His head crooked as he asked this, ever so slightly.


	8. Daddy's Little Monster

Marcelini and Jake had parked the halftrack into the safe concealment of the garage, locking it up tight. When they headed up the concrete steps to the Nightosphere, they were met by a custodian who let them in through the back door, and also helped the wounded, weakened Jake get inside the building rather than the not as strong Marcelini, taking him to a cot in one of the backrooms. Being the only staff there in a nightclub that opened at night, the custodian was the one to leave to fetch Jake's doctor. They could not call him, as a phone call might be tapped, thereby ratting out Jake's location.

Marcelini remained in the same room as Jake, a windowless, dimly lit, but clean and high-class conference room where the cot was set up. She sat off in the corner of the long, oval-shaped table, keeping her face buried in her arms. The adrenalin of the escape had worn off, and the horror of everything that happened began to enter her mind in an emotional way. She'd killed someone, and her home was destroyed.

Jake was too weak at this point to speak comfortably, and kept to himself on the cot. It would take a long time to die in the area he was shot, but all energy and stamina was drained from him, and he was in a lot of pain.

They were both in a lot of pain, although different forms of it.

A hard fist bang on the back door from outside. It was followed by several more hard bangs. Someone was knocking on the door, which could only be opened from the inside. Marcelini pulled herself out of her emotional self-venting to stand up and walk over to the door.

"Be sure you check the peeking hole first." Jake's weak voice could be heard.

Marcelini reached into her side pocket and took out the small handgun he'd given her earlier that day, which had six bullets remaining out of its capacity of eight. She turned off the safety before looking through the peeking hole on the door.

It was the orange-wearing and haired Penny, and the green-wearing Magic Man right behind her. He was looking behind them nervously. Marcelini undid the deadbolt and opened the door for them, keeping herself behind the door as she walked it back, she heard their footsteps come in.

"It was that prick Ricardo. I know it was him." Penny was growling angrily. "Nobody else gains anything from this whole mess. He knew about the pickup last night, and ratted us out to someone."

"Let's not be rash, now." The Magic Man was right behind her as they came into the conference room. "We should wait for a better time. He's not going anywhere." Marcelini shut the door behind them. They didn't notice her.

Penny kicked one of the chairs out of unchecked emotion, knocking it out of its place and across the floor. "We should have taken him out when he was weak, now he's pulled this crap. I'm gonna find him, and send him back to Bolivia in a box."

"Don't you think that's a little extreme?"

"Aw, hell, Jake." She saw him over on the cot, saw the wound, bandaged by his shirt. "He needs a doctor," she announced.

"There's one on the way," Marcelini said, still standing next to the door. Her gun was put away.

Penny turned, and saw her. "Marcy..." The anger on her face vanished as she walked up, closed the distance and hugged her tightly. "Dammit Marcy, you had me worried sick."

Marcelini could only hug her back. "How did you two escape?"

Magic Man said, "we ditched any weapons we had and walked out the front door. After the mansion caught on fire, there was no way the Banana Corps could arrest us; they had no grounds to even be on the premises."

"What he said," Penny said, letting go and holding Marcelini at arms' length. With nothing more to say, she let go and turned away. "There's also Captain Ruth B. Gilligan to consider. That curly-haired piece of ass chose the wrong crime lord to sell himself to."

"If he and Ricardo are working together..." Magus Manfred, the Magic Man mused. He looked up at Penny's face. "Then we can't go after him directly."

Penny slammed her fist on the table, glaring at him. "What the hell is this I'm hearing? By the end of this week I'm gonna have a hundred button men out on the streets." She walked up to Magus, a finger half-raised. "And if that fish-lipped Latino prick Ricardo shows one hair on his ass, he's dead!" She punched an open palm.

The Magic Man was struggling to stay reserved. He took a long, exasperated breath. "Penny, this is a precarious situation. We've taken a serious black eye, and Ricardo is not the only one who might try and take a bite off us." His voice elevated, becoming a full-blown shout, "you are acting like an overgrown child who just had her lollipop taken." They were up in each other's faces, an inch apart in confrontation. "Nobody's doubting the size of your dick, Penny. Nobody except you."

"Do you guys... know what happened to my dad?"

At hearing this, the two immediately sobered. Magus looked away. Penny looked toward Marcelini, lifting a hand, then letting it drop, shaking her head. "We... don't know what happened to the Don, Marcy. We didn't see him come out of the house, and it's burned to cinders at this point."

Her teeth clenched. She was afraid this was true, and struggled to keep it in. One heavy thing after another, it was too much.

"If anything happened to him..." Penny continued, looking at the Magic Man. "We're not holding back. It'll be war." Magic Man could not argue against this as Penny next turned to Marcelini, "And Marcy, I'll personally mail you the dicks of those responsible."

She chuckled slightly at this, knowing that Penny was just trying to make her feel better. "The nightclub... here, it's closed right now, right?"

"It is a 'night' club."

"Alright," she was nodding. "I want to be alone. I'll be out there."

"Yeah, of course, Marcy." They both let her leave without another word.

Marcelini walked through the door leading to a corridor. She walked for the sake of walking, letting the strong feelings in her mind boil, brew and bubble, only to settle and silence themselves in certain places. The corridor was decidedly black, with a hard floor and dim, purple lighting. She passed several doors, one led to a kitchen, others to offices or other corridors.

The door at the end of the corridor led to behind the bar in the main area of the closed nightclub. It was deserted, and dark. Switches next to the door turned on purple lighting that illuminated the entire black-themed, windowless interior without becoming all that bright. It was still decidedly dim.

She came out from behind the bar. The dance floor off to the left had a podium with various instruments. There was the occasional pillar that went up to the tall ceiling, and a wall opposite the stage which was lined with booths, at one of which she took a seat. The empty, dim nightclub was quiet and pleasantly cool-temperatured, and she felt at peace.

Still in a hazy daze, she took out Jake's Walther PPK, its safety on, holding it on her open palms. It was light for a gun, yet its metal composition inevitably made it a bit heavy. Earlier that day, she'd used it to...

She set it at the table she was sitting in the booth of, holding the sides of her face in her hands with her elbows propped on the table. She didn't just use it to kill that man, but also torture him first, the first shot having gone into his kneecap. Her overloaded mind went to this next, deciding to thoroughly process it.

The Purple. The drug in her system. She knew she would never have done those things if not for its psychological affect. It apparently removed her inhibitions; like alcohol, but without any loss of focus. To the point of numbing her to the normal mental barriers people have that stops them killing another person.

She remained like this for a long while, not keeping track of time. It was probably an hour before Penny came out of the back rooms, spotted her and then came over to sit across from her in the booth. She was holding two glasses filled with rum and ice, one of which she set in front of Marcelini as she sat across from her. "That's a dang fine gun you got there. Where'd you get it?"

"Oh," she looked down at the pistol, left laying on the table next to the glass of liquor Penny brought her. "It's Jake's. I borrowed it when we were escaping the estate."

"Jake's doctor arrived." She continued, relaxing. "Strict, hard-arse woman in her fourties. With a trio of nurses who like to kiss boo-boos." She laughed slightly. "The big baby is making all sorts of fuss." Marcelini said nothing in reply, so Penny continued, trying to get a conversation up. "Jake'll be fine. He's a friend of the Family, and we take care of our own."

"Hey, Penny..."

"Yeah, what is it Marcy?" She asked.

"Can I ask you... somewhat of a personal question?"

"Depends. I might have to refuse to answer." She said this good-naturedly, still relaxed on the other side of the booth as she took a sip of her glass.

"Why did you join the Family? Get so deep in the business, I mean."

She just shrugged. "It just happened, I guess. At first I did simple errands, carrying messages and junk. Then one day as I got older I ended up handling a sports book. I was really good at that so your dad started trusting me with more stuff. Then I... made my bones. That was three years ago."

"So you've... killed people."

"Yeah..."

She was staring down into the glass on her side, not having touched it.

"Marcelini..." Penny trailed off. "I'm not gonna pretend I know what's best for you." Her fingers were tapping on her glass. "I'm just going to do what sits right with me, and that's go after Ricardo, or whoever is responsible for that attack, then rip their nuts off and feed it to them." She stood up, and finished her glass with a single long sequence of gulps, exhaling after the last. She looked down at Marcelini. "I lost enough people I care about this morning. And I'm not gonna take any more, it's time to give." She turned and walked away, picking up her suit jacket from hanging on a nearby chair and slinging it over, her hand over her shoulder like it was a towel.

Marcelini watched her leave and head back to the backrooms. The view of her rear, and the way she dressed and carried herself, one could almost mistake her for a man.

She was alone again. The ice in her glass had melted somewhat, watering down the strong beverage. Marcelini decided to drink from it. It had a strong, twangy taste, and swallowing it made her shiver involuntarily.

Her next visitor was Donny, the quiet, sizeable bodyguard. He laid a small, lightweight package on her side of the table, and took a seat across from her.

She looked at the package, then at him. "What's this?"

He just shrugged. "Some guy handed it to me on the way here. Told me to give it to you next time I saw you."

That was suspicious as all hell. "Do you remember what he looked like?"

He shook his head. "Never seen him before in my life. I assumed he might be a friend of yours."

"And you don't remember his face?"

"No. Didn't give me nothin' for a name either."

She sighed. "Then for all I know this is a bomb or something."

"It's too light to be a bomb, Marcy."

She picked it up and weighed it. He was right, it may as well be an empty cardboard case.

"Mister Abadeer, he asked me to make sure you're alright."

Her mood elated somewhat, daring to hope. "When did you last see him?"

"In his office, he told me to find you and I left him there. When I was lookin' for you, all the mercs were dead, the cops were forming outside, and Scorcher went nuts and set up the building to get torched. He was ordered to, to keep the cops from findin' nothin' inside."

"And... you didn't see him exit the building?"

He looked down, at the table. "No... Also the Door Lord's dead. He answered the door when the attack started, and they shot him."

The Door Lord was a familiar face to her. She felt genuinely sad at hearing he didn't make it. "But... you didn't see what happened to my father?"

Donny shook his head.

There was a chance he got out through a tunnel. There could be more of them other than the underground garage that she didn't know about.

"Penny's fumin' like a train in the conference room. She wants to go to war on Ricardo's gang. Ash and the Magic Man are trying to offer somethin' different."

"I see..." she said indifferently. Ash apparently made it as well. He was another of Hunson's caporegimes. Before he was indoctrinated, he and Marcelini were in a relationship. She broke up with him after he sold her childhood doll for a surprisingly good price, it being a rare collector's item. But at that point he was already in the loop. Dating her had opened doors for him, and he continued working for Don Abadeer. In retrospect, she found she disliked nearly everything about him.

"Marcy..." Donny was frowning to himself. "It ain't safe out there. Don't leave this place without telling me first. Alright?"

Marcelini knew he was just following her dad's orders, and wasn't trying to smother or patronize her. She nodded, and he got up and walked off.

At least another hour passed. The day outside passed by out of sight of the oblivious interior of the closed club. Marcelini finished the drink Penny had given her, and got out of the booth. She headed across the deserted floor to the deserted stage. Among the instruments left to lay in the back area, she found what she was looking for: a bass guitar.

She tuned it, testing each string one by one until she was satisfied.

A stool, off in the far corner from the bar and backroom was her chosen place to play. As she played the strings, words; lyrics came to mind, each syllable in sync with a calm, patient chain of notes:

" _Oh, mys-ter-i-ous strings... Pul-ling, shif-ting."_

The bass line endured, calm, slowly, and patiently moving along.

" _Mysterious strings, of change and unmaking..."_

" _Biin-ding all of man."_

Her voice rose to a high pitch. _"A ghost-ly haaand, picks and chooses."_

" _The worthy, the priveledged."_

" _The ru-lers of Maaan..."_

As her bass line became calm, became passive, an abstract image entered her mind. An image of all people on the earth, moving and doing whatever they chose to do. Strings became visible from glimmering glare of light, tied around the wrists and ankles of every one of the persons walking, sitting and doing, even those who were fighting one another in distant battlefields and underground arenas. And the strings never loosened, never became slack. Every motion was tied to the motion of another human, whether walking, sitting at a desk or working.

The strings, ever taut, all eventually met and formed together, all strands eventually reaching this common convergence, which rose into the sky, into transcended space. It met with a cross-shaped handle, being moved by the deliberate, meticulous fingers of an etherreal hand.

The song ended, and she was bent over on the stool, facing downward with her eyes shut. She had a visitor, who remained out of sight. "I'm trying," she said to the visitor. "I really am. To make sense of it all."

"I know." The gentle voice of the Magic Man could be heard, out of view in the now silent, darkly lit, peaceful interior of the building. "If your father is truly gone, you could simply forget all of this. Live anywhere you want, comfortably off the trust fund undoubtedly left to you."

She could only chuckle briefly at this. "Could you do something like that, were it an option?"

"..No, I suppose not. Now that I think about it, for someone in your mindset it would be humanly impossible."

"But not humanly impossible to do what you would have me do." She stated.

"I agreed with your father then. I agree with him now."

"My stance has not changed either," she protested.

"But your situation has. Don't you want control over your destiny? Control over your world?"

She could only shake her head. "Lot of good that did my dad. He had power, and look what ended up happening to him."

"What kind of life is lived in a perpetual state of terror, Marcelini? Is the human being meant only to stay beneath the mud, out of fear that should he cross the line, popping up to the surface, an undefined reaper will come for his head?"

"Simply popping one's head up to see doesn't seem like a good strategy against these 'reapers' you metaphorically refer to."

"Do you think that those responsible for the attack did so because your father _didn't_ present a threat to them? He had control over the destiny of men. Others desiring the same control saw him as an adversary."

"People desiring power have always been driven to destroy one another."

"Indeed. Even those who rule are not kept safe from the world they climbed to reach it."

"So then what's the point? How could having power possibly make someone happy?" This was it. She'd been driven to the core; the honest truth. The question that led to her wishing not to become like her father. The question that defeated any case anybody made against her decision to do something- anything, else with her life.

There was a pause. She did not hear him walk away; he remained put. "If not you, then someone else."

"Fine then." She answered. "They can have it if they want. I don't care."

"You don't care if they come to your house? Or the house of someone you care for? They'll do as they please with you, take what they please and violate what they will. You can do nothing, for you'll have thrown away any power you had to retaliate against them; you gave that capacity away, and they took it. You're bright, Marcelini. You know what people are, and what they would do with power. What they would do to you as an ordinary person, ripe for victimization and exploitation."

She had her eyes shut, taking a long breath. "I just... want to be away from it. It's all so stupid and senseless. If people want advantage over each other so badly, then why don't they decide it with Chess, or Boxing?"

"Because..." His voice toned down, becoming calmer; solemn. "Chess and Boxing are fair, and victory is earned by the deserving compeditor. Compare this to the sort of men who desire power and hold to it; they cannot abide fair play, cannot abide being challenged to think or discipline themselves. And they do all in their power to ensure that such... meritocracy is punished and retaliated against; it is a threat to their power base. If human merit had a stronger voice, then one of the thousands of better people would kick the ruler off his throne with minimal effort. As it stands the better people have better things to do with their lives than play the petty game of kings and pawns. If just one of them brought their competence to bear against them..."

"But the truth remains..." She was deep in thought. "That if I do what my dad wanted me to do, I'll become a part of their world. Their world of treachery and deciet." Her eyes opened. "I could do so much better in the honest world."

"The honest... world." He was flavoring the words, saying them out loud with deliberation. She heard him walk away. "Yes, the honest world. Of course, Marcelini. Go ahead and tell yourself there is a such thing. Tell yourself it will keep you safe."

Left alone, she decided to open the small package Donny had delivered to her. She already knew what it was.

Resting in the center of crushed paper stuffing, was a small, narrow syringe, loaded with a purple, semi-transparent substance. It had a cap on the end of its needle.

* * *

 **One Week Later**

"Ballistics data just came in. Every victim in the room, guards included, were whacked by the same weapon."

Finn was with his squad of handpicked specialists, aboard a cargo plane heading for the West Coast. "And every one of them had their own weapon, most of them unholstered at the time of death?"

Cake had a report sheet which she'd just pulled from a fax machine, wired to work on a plane in flight. "That's what it says here. No other shots were fired from any other gun on the scene."

He leaned back, running his fingers through his golden blond hair. "So you're telling me... that just one guy walked into City Hall, and killed eight men with eight extremely well-aimed shots from the same gun in just a few seconds?"

"Well... no." She replied. "A smoke grenade was used."

"So he shot them through smoke!" He dropped his hands on his lap. "Did he miss any?"

Cake was shaking her head. "One bullet per victim."

"And who were the victims?"

"The Mayor of West Messina, his secretary and six security guards."

"All in the same room?"

"The killer got past the front desk with a fake ID. They found it out a minute later, and the guards came to his office, anticipating the attempt on his life."

"Lotta good it did them." Marshal sniped from his spot further back, wanting in on the discussion. A scoped 30.06 rifle was cradled atop him as he lay down relaxedly, occupying several seats. He was the resident marksman.

Fionne leaned forward, looking at Finn and Cake, who were at the front of the fuselage near the cockpit door. "How'd he slip past the cops? They had to have stormed the place on learning of the shenanigans."

"He was gone before they arrived at the scene." Cake said, still reading the report. "He got in and got out fast, with an escape car prepped in advance."

"You guys ready for this?" Finn announced to everyone in the fuselage of the plane. "The man we're reading about right now, that's our target. If any one of you gets any chance at all to kill him, I want you to do it. Even if it's right there in the streets in front of a hundred people."

Lumpy, a large, round man with a very formal posture spoke, "so us government enforcers of law and justice, we're just going to blow the man's brains out; no trial, no first warning?"

Finn picked Lumpy for his team for his ability to act the part in nearly any disguise, as well as fluency in eight different languages. "That's right Lumpy," he said. "If you're manning a hotel counter and he walks in through the front door, even if a ton of people see it ,you are, without saying a jammed word, to pull your sawed-off and blast him."

Lumpy raised up his pudgy hands, backing his head slightly. "I'm just checking."

Finn was still leaned forward. He addressed his entire team: "Peebs has ordered this man's death. The order was given to me in person. None of you will be penalized in any way for any action taken to accomplish our primary objective."

"There a law what says we can do this?" Monochrome, who almost never spoke, and always spoke in a monotone monotonously asked.

"Why yes, there is," Finn answered. "A very simple, well-known protocol which in such circumstances allows any law enforcement officer to kill a suspect."

"And what's that?"

"The defense of life."

* * *

Marcelini spent the week staying at the Nightosphere, seldom going out. When she did go anywhere, usually to have a walk and get some fresh air, it was under Donny's accompaniment. The marshal law had been lifted six hours after the incident, and New Florence became bustling and busy as ever.

She slept in one of several private bedrooms which the Nightosphere had, having been renovated to function as a safehouse for the organization. The staff came in late in the evening before the place opened, and left in the morning after closing and cleanup. They were all very polite to her, some asking if there was anything she required.

Penny, Magus, and the rest of the Family's leaders relocated to a secondary headquarters downtown after the heat blew over. Jake left as soon as he could walk. He didn't say where he was going.

She was able to get a bath at the Nightosphere, and change out of her dirty, semi-bloodstained jeans and grey shirt. In the dresser of her room she found a plain, knee-length black dress that she liked. It had a pale purple waist band, as well as striped stockings that came up past her knees.

News had reached her via the paper that Hunson Abadeer was missing, presumed deceased. His entire estate had become a huge crime scene.

After a week had passed of her staying there, she was paid a visit by a familiar bandaged lack of a face. Scorcher told her that they wanted talk to her at HQ, and that he was sent to pick her up.

Marcelini said yes, and she and Donny got into Scorcher's car. He drove them closer to the heart of the city, stopping in the ground floor of a ten-storied parking garage. They got out of the car, and walked together, Scorcher in the lead, with Marcelini in the middle, and the sizeable Donny taking the rear.

She decided it's be fun to squeeze info out of Scorcher. "So how's business? I've been in hiding the past week."

"The Don's underboss got picked up by the cops we found out, and Penny's taken charge of the whole show, as our current HQ is in her territory."

"And the war?"

"We've been pinning Ricardo's operations like a cushion. A couple nights back we were tipped the location of one of his depots, where his mules drop off heroin. We still don't know how the math he gets the stuff into the city; something the Don once tried and failed at, but the depot looked important so me and my crew picked a time and raided the place."

The conversation was getting monotonous, so she decided to end it. They were walking along a sidewalk of New Florence. It was an area of the city where the buildings were taller, and made of steel, glass and concrete. "Okay, what's quite enough info, thanks."

Scorcher continued, "I burned the whole place to the ground with only one can of kerosene. Ricardo's whole stock up in smoke. Maybe you could put in a good word-"

"Okay, Scorcher, thank you." She said more firmly.

They reached the entrance of a tall building with glass pane doors, in front of which they stopped. "And here we are," Scorcher announced. "Penny's HQ. It's ah... I think it's supposed to be the administrative center for some security firm with some non-threatening name. I never bothered to learn it. All of Penny's protection rackets are run from here. It's now also where the other caporegimes are doing their get-togethers."

Marcelini had actually never been to this particular place. She was certain her father had, though. And perhaps it was the destination of several of the many times he'd invited her to accompany him on 'business visits' and she'd refused.

The interior of the building was gaudy and luxuriant, with granite floors and a fountain in the center of the lobby. The only human face was a receptionist, busily hitting the keys on a typewriter and seemingly oblivious to their entrance.

"Where are all the guards?" Donny asked.

"Oh, those guys? They're in the backrooms playing cards, throwing darts and junk. We're in warzone mode, and standing outside the building like a scarecrow is like painting a drive-my-sorry-arse-by bullseye on your chest."

The receptionist looked up at them for a brief moment, then went back to her task as they walked by, toward the elevators. They entered one, and Scorcher wound a control dial which would take the cab to the second floor from the top.

"I never asked, why do they want to see me?"

Scorcher just shrugged. "I don't ask questions. But if I had to guess... The Don owned a lot of stuff relevant to the Family in his own name. It's been a week, you're his sole heir, so they might want you to sign papers and junk; keep their hold on those assets secure, you know?"

If this was true, Marcelini thought to herself as the elevator rose.. Perhaps she could sign away everything; all of her inheritance, and leave town, starting a fresh life elsewhere. The idea of separating herself permanently from the crime Family returned to her consciousness as a very feasible option.

A female voice could be heard as the elevator slowed. "Ricardo wants to have a sit-down. Negotiate a ceasefire." As the elevator reached the top of the floor, Marcelini saw a recreational room littered with couches and chairs, nearly all of them occupied. Penny was pacing openly on the floor. Scorcher opened the metal gate of the elevator cab as she and Donny entered the room.

Penny turned to them as they entered. "Marcy!" She said as she walked up to her, looking at her in her new black dress from head to toe. "You look beautiful." She patted her on the shoulder before turning to the rest of the room. "So anyway, Ricardo wants Marcy to be the one that talks to him. Asked for her by name."

Marcelini took an empty seat as the people in attendance began talking among one another. Donny stood next to her chair, warily scanning the room.

One voice spoke up. It was Ash, "Ricardo isn't the only one biting our ass, Penny. My guys have had run-ins with Haitian gangsters on my turf. The blow we took at Mister Abadeer's house has made them bold."

Penny was pinching between her eyes. "Yes, Ash. I'm well aware you're having difficulties against packs of junkies who can barely speak English. That's why I want to make the most of the peace talks Ricardo wants."

"If this continues." The Magic Man explained. "Every other two-bit enforcer in the city is gonna start taking nips at us. We can't afford to have enemies on all sides. There's also Ricardo's alliance with the Police Captain R.B. Gilligan. He's agreed to be Ricardo's bodyguard. A truce just makes more sense."

This was it. Marcelini thought. They actually weren't planning to have her sign everything away, thereby breaking her link with the Family; it wasn't happening. Her mindset from a week ago, the one where she came scarily close to wanting to go down the dark path, and spent the entire week in hiding trying to push her mindset out of, came back screaming with a vengeance.

"You can't do that." She said out loud.

The room went silent. Penny turned and the rest in the room all looked her way.

She continued, "Ricardo can't be trusted to hold any truce. Once the other Families start taking bites, he won't be able to resist, he'll join the feeding frenzy."

The rest of the room remained quiet. She was voicing their secret fear, which they were avoiding through wishful thinking. "..What do you suggest, then?" Someone asked.

Marcelini was sitting calmly in her chair, her forearms rested on the distant armrests and her legs crossed one over the other. "Ricardo wants to meet with me, right? So we'll set the meeting." Everyone else remained quiet, listening intently. "We'll ask it be held in a public spot; a bar or restaurant, somewhere there's people, so I feel safe." She remained seated, calm, and continued, "They'll search me when I enter the car, so I can't have a weapon. But if, ahead of time, a weapon can be planted for me..." She met everyone's gaze. The memory from a week ago, of having shot a man in the head was in the front of her mind. "Then I'll kill Ricardo, ending the threat he poses."

Everyone suddenly broke off, some murmering, others looking downward. Penny had a hand in her pocket, taking a long-winded breath. "Marcy, I'm as mad as you, trust me. What happened to your dad was over the limit. But you're taking this way too personal." She turned to the rest in the room. "This is business, and Marcy is taking it very personal!" She announced lightheartedly.

The Magic Man was looking toward Marcelini. "You'd also have to kill the Police Captain; he's guarding Ricardo himself. It just can't be done, Marcy."

"Says who?" She asked incredulously, standing up. "Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?"

Magus had a hand raised, shaking his head, "Marcy..."

"We're talking about a cop who's got it out for us." She said, gaining everyone's attention again. "A cop who sold himself out to a druglord. A cop who got mixed up in crime and got what was coming to him." She turned to the Magic Man. "That's a terrific story. We have pull over the press, don't we?"

He was nodding slightly. "Yeah, we do."

"They might like a story like that."

He was suddenly frowning with thought. "They might... they really might." Now he was nodding.

Marcelini turned to Penny. "It's not personal, Penny. This is strictly business."

* * *

"That was my man in R.B. Gilligan's precinct." Penny said as she hung the phone. They were all sitting at a round table, a vertable swarm of paper-packaged takeout food littered it. "The meeting place is PartyGod's emporium in the Bronx."

It was the following evening. For the weapon, Marcelini had given one of the capos Jake's Walther, which she'd kept. It was wiped, its serial number filed off, and she was given a pair of black calfskin gloves that matched her dress.

Penny had her arms crossed. "Why don't we just bomb the car, with dynamite?"

"No, they'll be looking for dynamite."

"Ricardo might not even be in the car, Penny," Magus Manfred shouted.

She turned to Marcelini, "Marcy, you still sure you want to do this?""

A war in the criminal underground was beginning to escalate. Killing Ricardo would cause his entire organization to fold, nipping the whole thing in the bud. Most of all she was motivated to do it because of it being a way to escape the monotony of remaining in hiding. Another week in the Nightosphere would have been intolerable. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Penny turned to one of the capos. "I want you to have someone good, and I mean real good to plant the weapon."

He raised his hands. "The gun'll be there, don't worry."

The car arrived, and Marcelini said her goodbyes, then came out of the building, alone. The passenger's side door was opened for her by the driver, and she entered without a word.

The door shut, and a Latino face, wearing a glamorous red suit complete with a blue bowlo came out of the shadows of the backseats behind her. "A pleasant evening, Marcelini Abadeer." His English was fluent, but refined to an uptight, forced level. "We haven't met. I am Ricardo." he extended a hand over the seat and over her shoulder. The driver got into the car, and they set off.

She took his hand, and they shook. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mister Heartguy," she said in a polite voice.

The car got up to speed, moving along the lamplit but still bustling streets of New Florence.

Another hand came from behind and rested on her shoulder. The man sitting next to Ricardo in the back had short, curly hair and a dark-skinned, egg-shaped face. "How do you do, Miss Abadeer? I'm R.B. Gilligan."

Uncertain of how to reply, she simply nodded slightly.

"I'm sorry about this, but I gotta frisk ya," he continued.

Knowing what this meant, she climbed up on her seat and turned around, setting on her knees. R.B. Gilligan leaned up and reached up and down, searching her cavities. She shut her eyes tight, just waiting for it to be over. Thankfully, he avoided touching her anywhere inappropriate. Once it was over, they both sat down normally in their seats again. The driver indifferently focused on the road as the car remained in motion.

"She's clean," he announced.

Ricardo leaned in again. "Now Marcy, I want you to keep an open mind while we talk. That... man-complex Penny, she's a cowboy. You can't talk business with her. So after this I want you to be the one to talk to her. She listens to you."

Marcelini was adjusting her hat. "Not to worry," she said calmly. "All I'm interested in is stopping the bloodshed."

Ricardo tentatively leaned back in his seat, he nodded slightly. "Alright, good..."

They reached PartyGod's emporium, parking right outside the front entrance. The place was a neon-lit restaurant, bar, casino and hotel, all packaged in one improbably large building on an improbably large lot that stood out like a Christmas light on a pile of grit.

Marcelini, Ricardo and R.B. Gilligan exited the car. They went inside. The interior reminded her of the Nightosphere, only with a cool, gentle baby-blue theme. The bar occupied the entire wall on the left, and to the right the elevation went down, with short flights of stairs leading to the main floor. It was still early in the evening, the place had only just opened, and the patrons were sparse and far-between.

They took a small table with four chairs, occupying three of them. They ordered, and then Ricardo got straight to dialogue.

"have you ever been to Bolivia, Marcelini?" he said, relaxed in his uptight, overly formal tone."

She shook her head. "Can't say I have."

"I thought not," he said naturally. "It's always safe to assume not. It is a perfect supply source for my... operations."

He wasn't giving anything away. It was widely known that Ricardo produced his heroin in his home country of Bolivia. "Is there a point to this?" She said.

"My point, Miss Abadeer, is that I believe in America." he was indicating himself on the chest with inward-pointing fingertips. "America made my fortune."

She looked over, at the Police Captain sitting at the table with them. "Not the most legitimate of fortunes, you must admit."

Ricardo made an exaggerated shrug. "Your upbringing was one of luxury and privilege, was it not?"

She twitched, feeling he'd made a cheap shot. "Not entirely. My father didn't know I existed until I was four years old. When he learned about me, he sent for me, and from then on I lived with him."

"I see..." He took a sip of his wineglass, which the waiter had served while they talked, and set it back on the table. "Speaking of your father, Don Abadeer. I am truly regretful at hearing of his passing. His caporegimes have given me no end of trouble, but I do not hold that personally against him."

Marcelini was staring into the wineglass served on her side of the table. "Penny thinks you're behind the attack. That you tipped off the authorities in regard to something he was doing."

"That is simply not true." he said calmly, shaking his head.

She looked at Captain R.B. Gilligan. "You were at the scene, were you not? And you're working with Ricardo. You can't blame her for assuming."

Ruth B. Gilligan shook his head at this. "When I tried to raid your home, Miss Abadeer, I was only doin' my duty as a public servant. The place was a warzone, and it brought marshal law on the city for several hours. How could I not have shown up?"

"This is exactly why I wanted to establish talks," Ricardo added. "I'm a businessman, and blood is a big expense."

She looked at the two men. At one, then at the other, feeling nothing but disgust toward both of them. She had no reason to believe anything they were saying. They presented no evidence, and did not finger a more fitting culprit of the attack on the Abadeer estate. They were treating her like a gullible kid, she thought. They thought they could manipulate her. Their food was served by the waiter. "I need to use the restroom."

Ricardo frowned slightly at this.

"Is that alright?" She asked.

"Hey, you gotta go, you gotta go." R.B. Gilligan said, already eating.

She got up and walked past their table, in the direction of the restrooms.

"Hold on." Ricardo raised a hand and stopped her, then with the same hand searched the cavities underneath her knee-length dress skirt.

"I frisked her. She's clean." Gilligan clarified.

"Make it fast," Ricardo said as he let her walk away.

"I've frisked a lot of young buns..." She heard the Police Captain say to Ricardo as she walked away in the direction of the bathrooms.

Marcelini entered the women's room. Finding it deserted, she went into the stall that was beneath a ventilation duct, climbed up on the toilet and undid the already loosened screws holding the cover on. It came off, and she set it slowly, quietly on the floor by crouching, keeping her balance standing atop the toilet seat.

Inside the vent, right behind where the cover was, she felt with her hand a hard, metal object wrapped in linen. Taking it out and unwrapping it showed it to indeed be the small, concealable Walther PPK. It was wiped of any previous prints, and her calfskin gloves prevented her own prints from getting on it.

Wrapped in the bundle with the gun was another item: The small syringe filled with the purple substance. She knew exactly what the substance was, and what it did.

After replacing the ventilation cover, she hid the small gun under the backside of the pale purple waistband of her dress, and then attended the syringe. She removed the cap on the end of the needle, ensured there was no air inside the canister, and then stuck it into a large artery in her arm, pumping the purple substance into her system.

Marcelini emerged from the women's bathroom, not yet feeling the affects of the drug. She retook her seat at the table with Ricardo and R.B. Gilligan.

"Now then," Ricardo resumed. "I think it'd be wise, at this point to let you in on my and the good Captain here's long-term plan."

"What plan is that?" She asked, remaining calm and cool.

"The long-term plan is peace; a real and permanent peace between myself, the Abadeers, and all the other Families. The truce between myself and your Family will only be the start."

She was frowning at this. "I don't understand... you want to make it so nobody fights each other again?" She looked at R.B. Gilligan. "Is that why you're working with Ricardo?"

"He ain't payin' me a cent." The Police Captain stated. "I was looking to get a close relationship with a major crime boss in order to have an inside look."

"I listened to Gilligan's plan and loved it." Ricardo said with energy in his voice. "He'll act as the arbitrator for any conflict that might be had in the future. If somebody steps out of line, he'll do his duty as a representative of the law and crack down on them. Aside from that it'll be business as usual."

She was still skeptical. "That hardly seems very cop-like, Gilligan. Shouldn't your goal be to arrest all criminals without discrimination?"

"Miss Abadeer, I am a modest man." The Police Captain said. "I'm not so vain as to think it's in my power to get rid of you guys. The most I can do as a servant of the people of New Florence, is ensure that you're not blowing each other's brains out on the streets."

"All the while Ricardo is selling heroin to people." She argued.

"I bust Ricardo, and another Ricardo comes to take his place. I've seen it before. The real problem is that there exists a market for his damn poison. Rehabilitation, and public awareness of the drug's effects are the real solution." Gilligan was looking over at the Latino drug baron with a crooked smile. "I intend to sink his business alright. By makin' it so he's got nobody to sell to."

Ricardo chuckled at this. "Just you try, Gilligan. I can't wait to see a feat so clearly impossible."

These guys were serious. She leaned back in her chair, a hand on her forehead. "I can't believe what I'm hearing... do you know how crazy you both sound?"

"You ain't touched your food, Miss Abadeer."

"Marcy," Ricardo said, propping his elbows on the table with knitted hands. "Being the previous boss' daughter inevitably gives you a lot of pull with the Abadeer family. Talk to Penny and the other caporegimes. Tell them about this arrangement. If they agree to it, all the other Families will fall in line. It'll be better for everyone, and I mean everyone. Even normal people."

These two men were fools, she thought to herself. Then had a quiet smile made its way to her face. Amazing fools. She managed a slight nod. "Alright, dammit alright. I'll go back and tell Penny. If she sees that I like it, she just might be won over."

Ricardo gestured with his palms, "splendid! Now..." He went back to eating. "Let's finish our dinner and enjoy the evening, shall we?"

Something happened to Marcelini. Something in her mind. A sudden burst of emotion and release she'd felt before, on that fateful day one week ago. It washed over her mind. The Purple, welling up inside, releasing her inhibitions and liberating her mind to walk on dark and unknown ground.

She looked at the two men again. A pair of beady-eyed, wishy-washy fools. They still offended her, disgusted her. The emotion ran out of her control, then she remembered the reason she originally agreed to meet with them.

She stood up abruptly, involuntarily, brandishing her weapon out from the backside of her dress' waistband. Ricardo only had time to raise his hand, a look of genuine shock on his face.

The gun discharged. The bullet went through his hand and into his forehead.

She turned to Ruth B. Gilligan, and shot him hastily, hitting him in the neck. He grabbed at the wounded spot, struggling and choking on his own blood. Another discharge of the weapon went into his forehead.

Marcelini stood there, her gun smoking and both men dead. She heard... nothing. All the other clientele and staff of the PartyGod's emporium were staring at the scene in horror, some backing away against a wall.

She turned and walked abruptly out of the place. Suddenly remembering, and dropping the gun on the floor.

Marcelini was not stopped as she went out the front door. A car drove by, and she entered it without the car stopping. She vanished from the street.


	9. An Old Happiness and a New Hatred

After the killing of Ricardo and Ruth B. Gilligan, Marcelini was spirited out of the country. The death of the Police Captain was splashed all over the papers, as was the Police Captain's involvement with the drug baron who was murdered at the same table.

She emerged from a recently landed plane, to behold the view of a hard, snowy landscape. The plane had landed in a secluded airfield, and in spite of being dressed warmly, she felt very cold as she walked down the mobile staircase which had rolled up to service the large aircraft. The plane had other passengers, but she could only guess as to their purpose; none of them talked to her, and she was in too sullen a mindset to strike up a conversation.

Marcelini walked through the the windy, snow-ridden cold of the airfield, heading for a log lounge whose chimney was puffing smoke. A bundled up man whose face was indiscernible was waiting for her near the building. "Are you Marcelini?" he called as she passed by.

She stopped, turned to him, and nodded.

He gestured for her to come. "Mister Kingston is expecting you. Please come with me."

Issac Kingston. The Russian anarchist who declared Siberia its own sovereign state. She could never have guessed, of all the people who might shelter her after what she did in New Florence, it would be him. The man took her to a large halftrack parked in an open space near the cabins. The vehicle looked surprisingly identical to the one from the Abadeer estate's underground garage. She entered the passenger's side of the halftrack, shutting the door as quick as possible to keep the wind and cold out.

The bundled man got into the driver's seat. The vehicle's engine was already running, left to idle to counter any risk of freezing. The man put the vehicle in gear, and headed away from the airfield and cabin, onto a rough and snow-ridden road. The heating vents kept the inside of the cab warm as the vehicle carried them off.

Marcelini knew, and was reminded before she carried out the deed, that killing Ricardo and R.B. Gilligan would mean she had to leave New Florence. Leave the country. Leave everyone she knew, and be away from it all for a long time. It was described to her quite efficiently: _"'Till people forget."_

"Can I ask questions?" Marcelini asked the bundled man driving the halftrack.

"Of course you may, Miss Abadeer."

"Why Issac Kingston? Who is he? Why did he agree to harbor me?"

"I thought that you were already aware, Miss Abadeer."

"Aware of what?"

"Issac Kingston... is your godfather."

* * *

"Ignition Point?" Finn asked, having repeated words only just spoken to him.

"Yeah." Cake said, holding a freshly faxed sheet of paper. "That's the code name of the project: Ignition Point."

Finn was sitting on the rear of a large van, parked in the lot of a small roadside motel. The rear doors of the van were opened, allowing him to hang his feet out, resting them on the asphalt. The day was hot, and the surrounding terrain was arid and void of plant life save sparse cacti.

"Would this... Ignition Point project happen to link to an undocumented location in the Tendime Bank building?" Finn asked. "Only just uncovered by the authorities?"

"Yeah, that's right. How did you know it would link to that?"

Finn leaned back and opened an ice box next to the fax machine, taking a bottle of Coca-cola out of it. He popped the cap off, and took a long gulp before speaking. "I was there, when whatever was there was stolen."

"I see," Cake said. "I suppose if you knew more you'd share it wit-"

"Dog Man!" The voice was Marshal's. He came behind the van and then turned and looked straight at Finn. His arms were crossed and his face was frowning. "Dog Man, we gotta rent a second room. This coed crap isn't working at all."

"I heard that!" Fionne's high-pitched shout came from inside the open door of their room.

Finn's forehead was being rubbed by his hand. "Okay... did you set up the surveillance array like I asked?"

Marshal's face became, switched to a tight, humorous smile. "That's going smooth as silk, Dog Man. Gumball's just setting the aerial on the roof now."

Finn and Cake walked out from the van, getting a look at the roof of the single-story motel. Gumball's frail figure was sitting atop it, and he was attaching light metal booms to a fixed pole.

Finn turned to Marshal. "He doesn't seem comfortable. Why are you having him do it?"

Marshal was still smiling, close-mouthed with clenched teeth. "Why else? Because I don't like him. He's frail and lame and I want him to suffer."

"Marshal..." Finn was pinching his forehead, growling the name.

"I'm pulling your leg, man." Marshal quickly amended.

"Really, is that so?"

"Yeah..." A pause, "I put him up there because he's scared of heights."

Gumball was very slowly, very tentatively trying to stand atop the roof. But he quickly sat back down again.

"It's... ah..." Marshal was looking at Finn, trying to gauge his reaction. "It's just horseplay, you know?"

Finn proceeded to shoo him off, "just go rent the second room-"

"I'm on it," Marshal quickly dismissed himself.

"What exactly are we doing here, Dog Man?" The plump, deep-voiced Cake asked. "This isn't anything like what I have experience with."

"There's another motel, closer to town a few clicks east down this road. A bunch of apple merchants are going to have an exchange there within the next few days."

"Apple merchants..?"

"Diamond smugglers. By now, our method actor Lumpy has taken position as the receptionist of this other motel, and Monochrome is the custodian, going through all the rooms and installing wiretaps on the phones."

"Why in Glob's name are we bothering with apple merchants? I thought we were after the big fish. The one-man nightmare who just blew off a mayor in California, and a ton of other people back during the War."

"The intelligence docs PB gave me, according to B.M.O. they link von Lichtenstein to the names of two people who may possibly take part in this diamond exchange. Capturing them is the best lead we have. If we're super lucky, our target may even show up."

"So I'm guessing you want someone on the monitors in our room at all times, awaiting word from our away team or wiretaps."

Finn went back to the rear of the van, taking a seat and resuming the drinking of his Coke. "You got it, Cake. We have to be ready to move at a moment's notice."

"The antennae is ready!" Gumball called from atop the roof. Finn and Cake walked out yet again to see. Gumball continued, "now if someone would be so kind as to put the ladder back..."

Finn saw that the ladder was tipped over to lay on the ground, stranding Gumball on the roof. "Marshal..." he groaned as he walked over to it.

* * *

When Marcelini was four years old, she had been taken from the life she knew by her biological father who, up until that point had not been aware of her existence. She'd lived with him from then on, and the memories of her life before then faded from memory, only seldom recalled.

However, there was one part of this memory she distinctly remembered, even to the present. It was the memory of her caretaker. She remembered him as a dear friend. But in regard to his appearance, she could remember nothing.

"Where are we going, exactly?" She asked the driver.

"Mister Kingston's compound. It's an under-ice settlement, and this is one of the entrances."

Marcelini was in the passenger's side of the halftrack as it went downhill, into a ravine of ice and snow which led to an open clearing. The clearing was lit by electric lights atop metal towers arranged along the surrounding natural wall. They were in front of the vast mouth of a natural ice cavern which covered half the clearing.

The driver took the vehicle into the mouth of the cave, out of the wind and snow. He parked it in one of many empty spots.

They got out of the vehicle, and she followed the bundled man to a steel hydraulic door in the ice. It was cold, even in the low ground where the wind was weak, and she buried her head into her muffler, walking with a stiff, bundled posture as she kept her hands inside her coat pockets. She waited with forced patience as the bundled man interacted with an intercom next to the door.

" _Password,"_ requested the voice on the other end. It sounded almost identical to the bundled man.

"Gundy? It's me, Gunthy. I brought Marcy."

The door emitted sound from its hydraulics, and then a release of pressure. It swung open on hinges, revealing its thickness as it cleared the way for them.

It was an underground bunker built inside the ice. They entered, and the door automatically shut behind them. The inside was cold as well, but there was no wind.

"So what did you mean by Kingston being my godfather?" She asked this as she caught up to the Bundled Man by walking a bit faster. "Is that true?"

"I thought you knew. Why else would you come to Siberia?"

"I didn't know. I was forced to leave the United States."

"I actually don't know much about the guy; nobody does." They passed by several intersections in the corridors, and then emerged to a catwalk overhead a large, semi-rock cavern. "But I'm taking you straight to him. You can ask him yourself."

The cavern their catwalk ran through was an air pocket for a body of water occupying the far half of the expanse. At this water line, there was an array of concrete docks, three of which hosted a surfaced submarine.

The walkway took them into another tunnel, and they came to a valve-locked steel door, of the sort one would see on a ship. The Bundled Man turned its valve and then pulled it open, stepping aside to make way. "This is far as I go, Miss Abadeer. Issac Kingston is expecting you.

Beyond the door was a flight of steps. Marcelini tentatively stepped through the door and then walked up them.

The stairway emerged to an open recreational room. All along the broad wall ahead of her was a massive glass viewing window with vertical steel ribs. The room was carpeted, and gently lit with blue and orange light sources.

It was deserted. Unoccupied furniture and large bookshelves occupied the open space to her left, to her right, and behind. The stairwell was situated in the middle of the open floor.

She kept scanning the room, looking outside as well. The window overlooked a lit outdoor compound, seen through the hazy snowfall of nighttime Siberia. Her hearing picked up nothing. The large recreational room was deathly quiet, save for the pendulum ticking of a grandfather clock.

"Hey, Marcy!"

The sudden shout came from behind. Marcelini jumped involuntarily, stepping briskly away from the source of the sound as she turned around.

He was a little bit shorter than she was, with light blue skin and a pointed nose. His face was dominated by a woolly white beard, and hair that went past his shoulders.

She knew who he was. "You're... Issac Kingston."

He had his arms spread, and his pointed teeth were showing as he displayed a dumb smile. "It's so good to see you Marcy!" He walked up to her, intending to hug her.

"Oh, okay..." She said awkwardly, not knowing what would be the courteous thing to do. He gave her a big warm bear hug, and she remained stiff and still, waiting for it to finish.

Once the hug finished, Issac looked off, shifting his attention in a 90 degree pivot. "I wonder where my record player went..." he walked off.

"Hey, excuse me." She followed him. "I have... a lot of questions for you."

"I have some questions for my record player, once it's finally been caught." He laughed briefly at his own joke.

"Is Issac Kingston your real name?" She followed right behind him as he moved past reading tables and chairs that were situated in clusters, heading for a forest of bookshelves.

"Why yes, I am Issac Kingston thank you for noticing." They reached the bookshelves, and were walking through the narrow isle way. "I declare an independent, sovereign Siberia that's free of Russian rule. If they want this worthless expanse of frozen death, they'll have to fight me for it, by thunder."

"Why are you my godfather? Did you know my real dad?"

"You Italians and your godparently traditions." He rounded a corner, passing the shelving units' ends.

She rounded the corner as well, easily keeping up. "It's a Christian thing, not just done by Italians. And I've been told it was done by you, to me. And so I assume you knew my father."

"I'll do it to my record player once I've found the elusive thing. Then I'll know every last bit of what it's been doing behind my back."

They emerged to a round open space in the maze of bookshelves, surrounded by four curved shelving units which formed an even encirclement around the large space. In the center of an arrangement of tables, desks and shelves, on a small end table, sat a record player which Kingston noticed, and was walking toward. It had a large, brass horn piece.

"Kingston." Marcelini said as they reached the record player. "I know you're not touched in the head; you couldn't possibly have done all the things the news says you've done if you were. I want you to be straight with me."

"Really?" He was grinning again with his pointy teeth, looking toward her as they stood next to the record player. "You think I've done impressive things?"

"Well..." She scratched her head, suddenly feeling placed on the spot. "Except for the whole Siberia separatism thing. That's kind of weird."

"Oh... where's that record?" He bent down and opened a drawer under the player. It had a row of paper record cases, which he flipped through.

"What are you looking for in there?"

He found it, a wide, black disc inside a blank paper case which he took out, blew off and then placed in the player. "This is a recorded record."

"Of course," she said. "All records are recorded."

"No no, I mean recorded by speaking into a player while it spun and scratched out a blank."

"What is it a recording of?"

He turned the play switch on the player, and the record began spinning as its tonearm moved over it. "I think you should sit down, Marcy."

He suddenly seemed sober; serious. She complied with his suggestion, settling back on a large recliner.

Many seconds of static as the record spun, then a voice: _"June Sixteenth, Year Nineteen Thirty Two. Note to my future self. Listen to this, you fruit loop. Drill it into your head, because it's going to become important one day."_ It was a male voice, legible but blurred by the poor sound quality of the record. Issac giggled at this line. "He's talking to me."

The male voice continued: _"Hey, Marcy! Come over here a second? I'd like to talk to you."_ There was a sound of rapid footsteps on the recording, growing louder. _"What is it?"_ The voice was that of a small girl.

" _Marcy, I... think you should probably sit down for this."_

" _What for?"_

" _Marcy, please."_ The man said this in an easy, casual tone. _"It's a kind of big thing."_

The sound of stepping up a stool, and plopping onto a wooden chair several times bigger than her. _"All right, I'm all situated,"_ She said this satirically, ready to laugh. _"What's this big thing?"_

Marcelini was looking at Kingston. She raised a finger, pointing to herself with her eyes wide open. Kingston nodded in reply.

" _I've just found out who your father is, Marcy. And he knows about you."_

There was silence in the recording. The girl said nothing.

" _And... you're going to be staying with him for awhile."_

" _..Who is he?"_ She had a restrained, tense tone kept to a low pitch.

" _Hunson Abadeer. He lives in the United States. He's sent for you, and I have to go along with it."_

" _I... have to leave?"_

" _He's your real father. I'm not in a position to refuse."_

" _And why should I care that he's my real dad?"_ The girl's tone was suddenly angry, confrontational. _"He could have been here for me, like you, but he never was."_

" _He didn't know you existed."_

" _That's not an excuse!"_ There was a pause, and the man did not reply. _"Not an excuse... for taking me away from you."_

" _Marcy..."_ He took a breath. _"With him, you'll have a better life than I can possibly provide; an education. You'll eat every day."_

" _I don't care about that."_ There were breaks in her voice. _"I want to stay with you."_

" _Marcy, there are things that I need to do. And you can't be around for it. This is going to let me do those things without worrying about you."_

" _It has to do with the blue stuff, doesn't it? The stuff that's making your hair white."_

" _Yes, Marcy. The Blue is going to enable me to do the things I need to, but it's also going to change me. You can't be around when that happens."_

" _You... don't want to get rid of me?"_

There was a noise, of the man standing up and walking close to the girl. He got down and embraced her. _"No, Marcy. I'd never want to get rid of you. If I could, I'd stay with you forever and ever."_

" _I see a car on the road."_

There was a second of silence as the man stood and turned. _"Yes, there is."_

" _Who could it be? It's not the Bubblegum lady's car."_

" _Remember that Ambassador Bubblegum is a friend, Marcy. She's done a lot for us. If you're ever in need, you can trust her."_

" _I know, you've said that a lot. But what about this car?"_

" _It's your father's men. They're here earlier than I'd anticipated."_

Issac Kingston stopped the record player. The dimly lit library became silent, save for the wind outside the large windows of the distant wall. "That..." His voice broke the silence. "That's pretty much how it happened."

Marcelini was staring at the man, trying to see a resemblance, a familiarity In his blue, pointy-nosed face. "Is it... are you really him?"

He was looking off, and she saw his facial profile from the side. "We lived in Europe, and it was right after the war ended. Times were tough, and we went from town to town, doing anything just to get by. That recording was made in an abandoned single-room cabin we'd found."

"What's your real name, Issac?"

"You were five, or six or so. When your father came for you, we'd made an agreement: That if anything were to happen to him, I'd be the one to take care of you again."

She stood up, taking a step closer to him, "your real name..."

He looked directly at her. And now, his cold face wore a warm smile. "It's me, Marcy."

Her eyes widened, her face twisted, near to tearing up.

"I am Simon Petrikov."

She embraced him, hugging him tightly. "You... It's really you."

He hugged her in turn. "Have I got the story to tell you, Lil Marcy."

"Yeah..." She broke into a smile while chuckling a single time. "Me too."

* * *

"Alright, let me see if I have this correct," Finn said. "You want me to abandon my mission, take my entire team, and help you with some job you can't tell me about until I say yes? You realize you're asking a lot, right?"

Night had fallen at the roadside motel. Finn was outside their rooms, next to the unmarked van parked in front of the doors. The doors of the rooms, and on the van were propped open, allowing all members of his team a clear line of sight with one another.

Jake was there, talking to Finn. His own car parked two spaces away from the van. Accompanying him was a girl in her teens, with glowing orange hair. She remained in the background, not speaking.

"And who the flip is the girl?" Finn continued to ask. "Is she the reason you deserted?" He was restless, pacing in front of Jake. Protocol would dictate that he arrest his brother for the crimes he was suspected of, but he hadn't yet considered doing this. Nevertheless, he was upset at him.

Jake raised a hand. "Listen Finn, I just want to get a word in edgewise."

"Great!" Finn threw his hands up, still pacing. "You can tell me what the math you've been doing. I really quite would like to hear your side of the story." Finn was not surprised that Jake was able to find him here, and so didn't ask about that. Jake was the best in the business at finding people.

"I can't," he said. "Not until you agree to join me. Whatever you're doing can't possibly be as important as this."

"I... don't know about that. But nice of you to assume I'm taking the cushy assignments, Jake. Real classy."

"Finn..." Jake's bulldog-like face was contorted somberly. There was a sobering in mood. "I need your help, man. I'm out of options."

Finn leaned back against the side of the van. "Aww, Jake..." His face relaxed as his forehead was pinched inside his hand.

The orange-haired girl remained quiet, observing the conversation between the two men with interest.

"What's your mission, Finn?" Jake asked.

"What?" He broke out of entranced thought.

"It's wrong to ask something for nothing. I'll help you with what you're doing, and once that's done you can help me."

"Your own mission can wait?"

He nodded. "It's a matter of danger, and I can imagine no place safer than rolling with you and your team." He turned his face back to the orange-haired girl. "Phoebe, what do you think of that? Traveling with these people."

Her eyes widened a bit, and she smiled, nodding wordlessly.

Finn felt elated at this. He huffed a couple of times in excitement as he extended a hand. "That sounds mathematical, Jake. Welcome aboard."

"I am one happy son of a beorc." Another voice interjected as their hands shook. It was Marshal, leaning against the motel wall next to the open door to their room. "We have both Werecanine Brothers. Von Lichtenstein is gonna be a very, very dead bastard."

Jake suddenly appeared petrified. His head did not move as his face froze in its expression.

"Yeah..." Finn trailed. "Now's a good a time as any to brief you. Von Lichtenstein has escaped Treesap Rock, and our mission is the manhunt for him."

"Finn..." Jake snapped back into motion as he grabbed his younger, smaller brother's shoulders. "Are you out of your mind? Why the math would you take this mission?"

He frowned. "Peebles handpicked me for it. What was I supposed to do?"

"Say no!" After almost closing his hands around his face, Jake turned around and gripped his forehead, groaning. "You're young, Finn. You have a life ahead of you. This is way too risky."

"This kind of thing is my life, Jake. I go after the bad guys. I protect the people of this country. And risk is a part of the job. I don't recall you getting like this when we planted bugs in the Cuban embassy."

"Finn, listen."

Finn continued, "or when we trekked through the night in the freezing cold to kill a finished double agent. There's also that firefight in Messina, Sicily; we barely got out of the city alive. Why now, of all times are you getting cold feet?"

"That stuff was easy." Jake said. "Easy, compared to von Lichtenstein. He's not normal people; you can handle normal people. This guy, he's supernatural."

Finn nodded, "Then you know how important it is that he be stopped."

"Ah, guys... we have a car." Marshal interjected again.

They turned to look. Out on the road, an expensive-looking, four-door car was riding along the road. It moved at a sluggish pace but did not stop. It came from the left, and was on the lane closer to the motel. It had tinted windows.

"Do you think..?" Finn suggested.

Jake nodded. "Yeah. Phoebe, get inside the motel room. Walk naturally, don't run. He was suddenly tense, with a welling up of fear that could only deride from the most serious of situations.

She'd only just looked toward the car out on the road. "What do you mean..?"

Finn and Jake both looked ahead, not staring at the car for more than a second.

"Just do it." Marshal hissed at her from next to the wall. "I go inside after you."

Confused, she nonetheless complied, walking naturally toward the motel room door.

"What's the call, Jake?" Finn asked.

Jake looked at Finn, preserving the appearance of their normal conversation. "That car is their cover; their pillbox. We lay a suppressing fire and they move their heads down. They can't fire on approach, and we've bought ourselves the seconds we need."

Finn glanced right, seeing the orange-haired girl, and then Marshal enter the motel room, leaving the door propped open. He reached behind under his civilian overshirt, gripping his .40 caliber stowed under his belt. "I'm ready, sync?"

"Sync," Jake answered. At the same timing they drew their pistols and snapped their facing toward the car out on the road. They fired, letting loose a volley of semi-automatic fire aimed at the windows of the car. The quietness and peace of the roadside motel was drowned away by the thundering crack of gunfire.

The car accelerated violently, thrusting forward as it made a tense right turn into the parking lot of the motel. It was headed straight for Finn and Jake.

After firing a few shots and as the car was turning into the lot, the two men turned and sprinted for the open door of the motel room. No gunfire came out from the car as it sped for them.

They made it through the door, and Marshal, from the concealed side, slammed it shut with a push-kick. "This is all we flipping need!" He exclaimed. The curtains of the large window near the door were drawn shut; they were concealed.

Finn scanned the room. He saw Fionne and Cake in the adjacent room through the open connector. Gum Ball's head could be seen peeking over a small bar set around the kitchen area, along with the barrell of an MP-40 submachine gun. "Where's the Girl?" he asked in Marshal's general direction.

Her head of orange hair poked out from behind the bar next to Gum Ball.

"Alright, stay put." He waved her down. "Jake."

Jake was sitting low behind the couch of the living room space. He looked over at Finn and Marshal, whose backs were to the side wall next to the door.

"Jake, they're gonna come in through this room. Fionne and Cake are in the adjacent connected room. Go 'round and flank them."

Jake's alert, intelligent eyes darted to the room connection, to the large curtained window, then to Finn. He nodded in understanding, then got moving, crawling low and hastily toward the room connection.

He next turned to Marshal. "Leave the door unlocked." He got down to a crawl. He could hear the opening and shutting of car doors outside. Marshal followed suit as he made his way over to the kitchen bar. They reached behind it, where Gumball and the orange-haired girl were taking cover.

Finn sat with his back against the cupboard below the sink, next to the corner where the orange-haired girl sat. She looked calm, with her hands rested on her knees, which were pointed up in a straight-legged sitting position. She looked at him with an open-eyed wonder void of any panic or fear."

"Um... Phoebe, right?" Finn said. She was extremely cute, and even in the present situation, his shyness kicked in. "We'll have to be properly introduced when this is over."

She nodded. "Alright."

"I don't have my rifle." Marshal announced, having taken a spot next to Gum Ball at the end of the bar. He looked toward Finn. "Can we please save the flirty crap for when we're not under attack? That would be wonderful, thanks."

"Gum Ball." Finn said to the pasty, frail man. "You've got that MP-40. This is all you, once they come in."

Gum Ball was shaking, darting his gaze left and right. "I... I... I..."

"You're trained in small arms, man." Finn said. "You've got this."

"I choke!" he whined. "I always choke with the real thing!"

Marshal groaned. "Glip Globbit, Gum Ball. You're such a chickie-poo."

"Ignore him, Gum Ball, you'll be fine." Finn assured. "You've got to do this. They're forming outside right now, and they want to kill us. If we die, who's going to stop Lichtenstein?"

"That's right," Marshal said. "If you die who's going to set the template for all men of what not to become?"

"I'll do it! I'll do it." He finally said, getting up to a kneeling position, readying his gun to raise up and shoot over the bar toward the door and window. He was shaking.

"Remember to direct your fire at the nasty men." Marshal said in a patronizing tone. "You want to hit them, understand?"

"Marshal," Finn snapped. Marshal looked over at him, raising his eyebrows. Finn replied with two open hands; a gesture to calm down. "He's got this."

Fully automatic gunfire erupted from outside. It tore through their room window and curtain. Bullet holes deposited themselves in the drywall past over the bar.

"This is it!' Finn shouted. "First break in the shooting, you fire back, Gum Ball. They'll come in through the door!"

Gumball was sweating, wanting to bury himself in the ground from the shocking noise of the guns outside. It was many agonizingly long seconds before the shooting subsided.

"Go!" Gum Ball rose out of cover, his submachine gun set on the bar in ready to fire position. He waited.

"Shoot, bitch! Democracy's at stake." Marshal said.

"Aaaaahh!" His yell was long, low and weak as he opened fire, just as the door was kicked open. A man in a black suit behind the kicked open door was hit by the spray of bullets. He was riddled with wounds as he fell to the asphalt outside, dead.

Gumball retreated back behind cover as two more men angled their fully automatic tommy guns into the room through the door and dumbfired, hitting everything inside at random.

Gumball removed the magazine from his gun and replaced it with a fresh one. "That wasn't terrible," Marshal complimented. "But we're sitting ducks in here."

"This will all be over in about..." Finn checked his watch. "Few seconds more."

A single additional gunshot outside, one of the tommy guns ceased firing. It was followed rapidly by a second gunshot, stopping the other.

"And victory is ours." Finn looked at Phoebe next to him, smiling. She returned the expression, and his shyness welled up again.

"Hello!" Jake's voice could be heard from the doorway. "Anybody alive in there?"

"We're just beautiful!" Marshal announced. He looked at Finn, Phoebe and Gum Ball in the cover of the bar with him. He looked elated. "That's the Man Dog in action: A killing machine even with a dinky fourty cal pistol."

"Glad you approve of my brother." Finn rose to his feet, and extended a hand down for the orange-haired girl. She had a small smile as she accepted his offer.

Jake, followed by Cake and Fionne entered the room through the door. He surveyed the shot up furniture and walls. "Dang, Finn. You always did keep a messy room.

He huffed with laughter at this. "You haven't been around to keep me in check. I'm letting loose."

The phone rang. It survived the gunfight, and made its abrupt ringing noise from the end table next to a chair in the living room.

Jake frowned at this. "Who would call your motel room?"

Finn shuffled past Marshal and Gum Ball to get around the bar and out of the kitchen, hastily making his way to it. "It must be the Lumpy or Monochrome, at the other motel."

Jake looked at Marshal, who shrugged. "Something about stinging a lead on Lichtenstein," he explained.

Finn picked up the telephone, "Talk to me Lumpy."

" _..Guess again."_

Finn had never heard the voice before in his life. He looked at Cake, who got the signal and went outside to the van, where her equipment was.

Finn spoke again into the phone. "Monochrome?"

" _..Guess again."_

Cake rushed back into the doorway. "The call is from the other motel's front desk."

Finn's stomach sank. He turned his facing, angling his mouth to the talk piece of the phone. He had to inhale before speaking again. "What happened to them?"

" _The fat one is dead."_ The voice said. It was level, dispassionate in tone. _"They meddled, and that made them accountable. Lap dogs of your pink leader."_

Finn deliberately, tensely made his way to the shot up couch, resting on it, well within cord reach of the telephone's base. "What about Monochrome? What did you do with him?"

" _I have him right here."_ There was the sound of a gun's hammer being cocked. _"Do you want him to live?"_

Finn swallowed, quietly. He had to choose his words carefully. "What is it you want?"

The gun went off. A suppressed shot that sounded like a release of air pressure was followed by the sound of a body dropping limp. _"What I want... what I want? What I want."_ The voice on the phone spoke aloud. Finn clenched his teeth. He was gripping the phone in a death grip. " _Do you know who I am?"_ The voice on the phone asked.

"..Yes." There was no hiding the angry breaks in his voice.

" _Say it."_

"von Lichtenstein."

" _Good..."_ He could be heard adjusting himself in a slouched position on a desk chair. _"And you are no doubt the pink one's latest lap dog. I have a question for you, if you'll pardon my curtness."_

Finn was glaring ahead in the distance, outside the destroyed window of his motel room. "She said you're not worth her time, so she asked me to clean you up." he was going to kill this man. There was no doubt on his mind.

" _I said... I have a question for you."_

Finn took a hard breath. "What? What's the question?"

" _Do you feel... cold?"_

"No, I don't feel cold." He stood on his feet.

" _Why not?"_

"Because..." Everyone in the room was observing the conversation. Processing what he said. He held the phone in both hands, and spoke into it: "I don't feel cold, because I'm wearing a sweater." He set the phone on its receiver, ending the call.


End file.
